circumvent

UK/səːkəmˈvɛnt/US/səːkəmˈvɛnt/

verbC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,497 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: circumvented, circumventing, circumvents

To circumvent is to get around a rule or an obstacle. Circumvent the ban, circumvent the rules, circumvent a problem.

It means going around rather than breaking through, which is why circumventing a rule is often lawful and always looks like cheating. The word is literal: circum means around and venire means to come, so circumventing is coming around something. Note circumference and circumstance, built the same way.

Definitions of circumvent

1verbcircumventTo get around a rule or an obstacle.C1
“Some companies set up offices abroad to circumvent the tax laws at home.”

circumvent is a getting around.

Where it comes from

Latin
circumveniō
English, today
circumvent

Learned borrowing from Latin circumveniō.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Verbs

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circumvent in the wild

Chemical analogues of illegal drugs are developed and sold in order to circumvent laws.
Structural analog
To circumvent this, it has been proposed that Autarchoglossa be renamed to Unidentata (single egg-tooth, a feature both groups share) and be redefined to include Iguania.
Autarchoglossa
A tunnel is being discussed to circumvent the flooding problem.
Bundesautobahn 620
To circumvent this, malate carries the reducing equivalents across the membrane.
Malate–aspartate shuttle
The BRICS cable was intended "to circumvent the U.S. and NSA spying through ports in Russia, China, Singapore, India, Mauritius, South Africa, and Brazil".
BRICS Cable

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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