Other forms: surrounding, surrounded, surrounds
To surround something is to be all the way around it, with no gap left. Trees surround the house, a moat surrounds the castle, police surround the building before dawn.
The passive is where you will meet it most: surrounded by children, surrounded by boxes, surrounded by people who already agree with you. Two nouns come off it — surroundings, meaning the place you are in, and a surround, the frame or border of something, as in a tiled fireplace surround or surround sound. The adjective is surrounding: the surrounding villages, the surrounding area. It also stretches past the physical, to the secrecy surrounding a deal or the doubts surrounding a story. Two Rs, one S.
1verbsurroundTo be positioned all the way around something or someone.
“High walls surround the garden on every side.”
2verbmoveTo move around something or someone so that escape is cut off.
“Officers surrounded the house before dawn.”
3verbcloselyTo be closely bound up with a situation, especially an unclear one.
“Rumours surround his sudden resignation.”
4nounborderA border or frame fitted around something.
“They fitted a new marble surround to the fireplace.”
Surround came from Middle French souronder and Latin superundō — super, 'over', with undō, 'to rise in waves', from unda, 'wave'. In Middle English it still meant to flood or overflow a place. The round in surround is an accident of English spelling: there is no roundness anywhere in the Latin.
Proto-Indo-European
*wed-
Latin
superundō
Middle French
souronder
Middle English
sourrounden
English, today
surround
Built from
From Middle English sourrounden, from Middle French souronder, from Latin superundō, from la + super-. From Middle English sourrounden (“to submerge, overflow”), from Middle French souronder, suronder, from Latin superundō, from super + undō (“to rise in waves”), from unda (“wave”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA