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ENVIRONS
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An outer adjacent area of any place
Synonyms:
environs; purlieu
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("environs" is a kind of...):
geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The area in which something exists or lives
Example:
the country--the flat agricultural surround
Synonyms:
environment; environs; surround; surroundings
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("environs" is a kind of...):
geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "environs"):
ambiance; ambience (the atmosphere of an environment)
medium (the surrounding environment)
scene; setting (the context and environment in which something is set)
element (the most favorable environment for a plant or animal)
habitat; home ground (the type of environment in which an organism or group normally lives or occurs)
melting pot (an environment in which many ideas and races are socially assimilated)
parts (the local environment)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Present simple (third person singular) of the verb environ
Context examples:
Miss Tilney, to whom all the commonly frequented environs were familiar, spoke of them in terms which made her all eagerness to know them too; and on her openly fearing that she might find nobody to go with her, it was proposed by the brother and sister that they should join in a walk, some morning or other.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
The next morning saw them off again at an early hour; and with no events, and no delays, they regularly advanced, and were in the environs of Portsmouth while there was yet daylight for Fanny to look around her, and wonder at the new buildings.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Winthrop, however, or its environs—for young men are, sometimes to be met with, strolling about near home—was their destination; and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva; the gates of the town were already shut; and I was obliged to pass the night at Secheron, a village at the distance of half a league from the city.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur’s Seat, St. Bernard’s Well, and the Pentland Hills, compensated him for the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)