ambit
(ˈæmbɪt)
[ad. L. ambit-us a going round, a compass; f. amb- about + -itus going, f. ī-re to go.]
1. A circuit, compass, or circumference.
| 1597 J. King Jonah (1864) 210 The very ambit of their walls and turrets. 1655 Oughtred in Rigaud Corr. Sci. Men (1841) I. 83 The area of the whole circle is equal to the half ambite multiplied by the radius. 1686 Goad Celest. Bodies i. iii. 8 Prodigious Hailstones, whose ambit reaches five, six, seven Inches. 1713 Derham Phys.-Theol. 43 [The earth's] Ambit therefore is 24930 Miles. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Suppl. s.v., A particular enquiry concerning the Ambit or circumference of antient Rome. 1794 T. Taylor Pausanias II. 38 The ambit of each of the parts above the prothysis is thirty-two feet. |
2. esp. A space surrounding a house, castle, town, etc.; the precincts, liberties, ‘verge.’
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. cxxix. (1495) 938 Ambitus is a space bytwene place and hous of neighbours of two fote brode and an halfe ordeyned for a waye. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v., It was frequent to inscribe the Ambit on it [a saint's tomb], that it might be known how far its sanctity extended. 1818 Hallam Mid. Ages (1872) II. 428 Within the verge or ambit of the king's presence. |
3. The confines, bounds, limits of a district.
| 1845 Stephen Laws of Eng. II. 745 Districts lying within the parochial ambit. 1851 Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. I. 240 Within the ambit of the ancient kingdom of Burgundy. 1876 K. Digby Real Prop. iv. §1. 178 Whose tenements are not within the ambit of the manor. |
4. fig. Extent, compass, sphere, of actions, words, thoughts, etc.
| 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. II. col. 107 His great parts did not live within a small ambit. 1859 Sat. Rev. 19 Nov. 615/1 The ambit of words which a language possesses. 1882 Times 10 Apr. 7/1 Misconception as to the ambit of this legislation. |