ambit

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See also: àmbit

English

WOTD – 2 February 2021

Etymology

From Late Middle English ambyte, borrowed from Latin ambitus (“circuit; circumference, perimeter; area within a perimeter; ground around a building; cycle, orbit, revolution”) (compare Late Latin ambitus (“neighbourhood; wall of a castle, monastery, or town; cloister; parish boundary”)), from ambīre + -tus (suffix forming verbal nouns from verbs).[1] Ambīre is the present active infinitive of ambiō (“to go around, to skirt; to encircle, surround”), from ambi- (“prefix meaning ‘both, on both sides’”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- (“front; face; forehead”)) + eō (“to go, move”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- (“to go”)). The English word is a doublet of ambitus.

Pronunciation

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  • Audio (RP):(file)
  • Hyphenation: am‧bit

Noun

ambit (plural ambits)

  1. (by extension)
    1. The extent of actions, thoughts, or the meaning of words, etc.
    2. The area or sphere of control and influence of something.
      • 1913, Gilbert Parker, “‘The Alpine Fellow’”, in The Judgment House […], uniform edition, Toronto, Ont.: The Copp, Clark Co., →OCLC, book IV, pages 412–413:
        He had invited Destiny to sweep him up in her reaping, by placing himself in the ambit of her scythe; but the sharp reaping-hook had passed him by.
  2. (archaic) The boundary around a building, town, region, etc.
  3. (archaic, rare) The circumference of something circular; also, an arc; a circuit, an orbit.
  4. (obsolete) Chiefly in the plural form ambits: the open space surrounding a building, town, etc.; the grounds or precincts of a place.
    Synonym: (of a house) curtilage

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “ambit, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2020; “ambit, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

(deprecated template usage) ambit

  1. third-person singular present active indicative of ambiō

Polish

Polish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia pl

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ambitus.

Pronunciation

Noun

ambit m inan

  1. (architecture) ambulatory
    Synonym: obejście
  2. (architecture) retrochoir
  3. (archaic) ambition
    Synonym: ambicja

Declension

Declension of ambit
singular plural
nominative ambit ambity
genitive ambitu ambitów
dative ambitowi ambitom
accusative ambit ambity
instrumental ambitem ambitami
locative ambicie ambitach
vocative ambicie ambity

Derived terms

adjective
adverb
verbs
adjectives
adverbs
nouns
verbs

Further reading

  • ambit in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
  • ambit in Polish dictionaries at PWN
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