Other forms: rounds, rounded, rounding
Round means shaped like a circle or a ball. A coin, a dinner plate, the letter o, a face you would call round rather than long.
Then it goes everywhere. A round is one stage of something repeated — round three of the boxing, a round of talks, a round of applause — and in a pub it is the set of drinks one person buys for everybody. Soldiers count bullets in rounds, a doctor does her rounds, a postman has a round. British English uses it where American English says around: come round for tea, walk round the lake, turn round. The verb tidies numbers, so 3.7 rounds up to 4, and a round hundred means exactly a hundred and nothing awkward left over.
1adjectiveroundShaped like a circle or a ball.~20%
“She wore small round glasses that made her look owlish.”
2nounstageOne stage or repetition in a series of events.~60%
“He was knocked out in the second round.”
3noundrinksA set of drinks bought for everyone in a group at once.~2%
“It is my round — same again?”
4nounsingleA single shot or bullet.~7%
“He had six rounds left and a long night ahead of him.”
5nounregularA regular route or set of visits made as part of a job.~2%
“The nurse was halfway through her rounds.”
6prepositionsidesOn all sides of something, or to the other side of it.~7%
“We walked round the lake and came back for lunch.”
7verbchangeTo change a number to the nearest whole or simpler one.~2%
“Round the total up to the nearest pound.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 14 sentences found in the wild and placed 14 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: circular
Round arrived from Old French ront and runt, which came from Latin rotundus, the same word that gives us rotund. Middle English wore the Latin down to one short syllable. The noun grew afterwards, partly out of the adjective and partly out of the French noun rond.
Latin
retundus
Old French
ront
fro-nor
rount
Middle English
round
English, today
round
From Middle English round, rounde, from fro-nor rount, rund, Old French ront, runt, reont (> French rond), from both Latin retundus and the original Latin rotundus. The noun developed partly from the adjective and partly from the corresponding French noun rond. a doublet of rotund.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA