[a. F. circulation or L. circulātiōn-em, noun of action f. circulāre: see CIRCULATE.] The action of circulating.
1. Movement in a circle, circular motion or course.
† a. Movement round or about.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 646. With circulatioun sa about tha ȝeid, For les expenssis and for grittar speid.
1575. Thynne, Lett., 19 March, in Animadv., Introd. 55. From one, all nombers doo arise, and by circulatione doo ende againe in thee same oone.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., III. xx. 208. As the world is round, so we may observe a circulation in opinions.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 601. According to this Latter Platonick Hypothesis, there would seem to be not so much a Gradation or Descent, as a kind of Circulation in the Trinity.
† b. A rotation about an axis, gyration; orbitual revolution. Obs. or arch.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. iv. 15. The perpetuall circulation by which the heaven is married to the earth.
1703. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1714), 95. After they had by these vertiginous circulations and clamours turn’d their heads.
1795. T. Taylor, Apuleius, IX. (1822), 215. Orderly and established circulations of the stars.
† c. An undulation propagated in circles from a center. Obs.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. iii. I. xx. The circulations Of sounds would be well known by outward sight.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 36. 581. The Circulations of Water, when some Heavy Body falling into it, its Superficies is depressed, and from thence every way Circularly Wrinkled.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 177. An emission and a circulation of solar particles.
† 2. A continuous repetition of a series of actions, events, etc., in the same order or direction; a round. Obs.
1682. H. Maurice, Serm. bef. King, 22. The World … grown Old under the Tautologies of Sin, and the Circulations of repeated Judgments.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, 114. What is this life, but a circulation of little mean actions?
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1858), 331. Living in a daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work.
1731. S. Hales, Stat. Ess., I. 1. Such a circulation of causes and effects … necessary to the great ends of nature.
† b. Alternate action, alternation; ‘reciprocal interchange of meaning’ (J.). Obs.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. liii. (1611), 295. There is in those two speeches that mutuall circulation beforementioned.
1647. H. More, Poems, 55. Each knave these bellows blow in mutuall circulation.
† 3. Old Chem. The continuous distillation of a liquid for the purpose of concentrating or refining it: see CIRCULATE v. 1 and CIRCULATORY sb. Obs.
1585. Thynne, in Animadv., Introd. 76. After the order of circulation in alchemicall art.
1605. Timme, Quersit., III. 183. Circulation is to rectifie any thing to a higher perfection.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 268. Circulation is the exaltation of pure liquor by circular solution and coagulation in a Pelican.
1641. French, Distill., i. (1653), 9.
† 4. (See quot.) Obs.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Circulation, properly an incircling, or invironing.
5. The circuit of the blood from the heart through the arteries and veins, and back to the heart. Hence, or any nutritive fluid through the vessels of animals or plants.
[1628. Harvey (title), Exercitatio anatomica … de circulatione sanguinis.]
1656. Ridgley, Pract. Physick, 337. The Cause of Vertigo is the circulation of the spirits animal by a thin vapour.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., Pref. 5. The Physitians … in blood-letting supposed the circulation of the blood, yet none asserted it before … Doctor William Harvey.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 543, ¶ 1. Since the circulation of the blood has been found out.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 177. The circulation of the fluids of an animal, or of a vegetable.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem. (1814), 66. The leaves preserve their functions in common cases no longer than there is a circulation of fluids through them.
1851. Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 321. Objects of the circulation of Nutrient Fluid.
b. Often called simply ‘the circulation.’
1707. Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, 258. The Circulation runs too quick in Fevers, Pains, [etc.].
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, 391. Any Stoppage of the Circulation will produce a Dropsy.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., II. 8. The circulation is complete in the Mollusca.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. i. 25. I cannot keep up my circulation on a sledge.
6. The movement of any thing in a ‘round,’ not strictly circular, but such that it returns again into itself after making a general circuit of the intermediate points.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 555. The Bodies … are now as serviceable to the Circulation of matter … turn to as good Grasse, prove as beneficiall to the Parsons Cowes, or Sheep.
1656. Cowley, Davideis, I. Notes, All which maintain a perpetual Circulation of Water, like that of Blood in Man’s Body.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., xx. 337. The waters of the earth are in a state of constant circulation.
1880. Haughton, Phys. Geog., iii. 128. The indirect heat contributed by the rainfall and atmospheric circulation.
fig. 1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., § 7. 149. Guardians and executors of laws are therefore the vitals of a Society, without which there can be no circulation of justice in it.
7. The transmission or passage of anything (e.g., money, news) from hand to hand, or from person to person (with the notion of its ‘going the round’ of a country, etc.); dissemination or publication, whether by transmission from one to another, or by distribution or diffusion of separate copies.
1684. Burnet, More’s Utopia, 52. A free circulation of Mony … is necessary for the course of Commerce and Exchange.
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., II. § 2. Money changeth hands, and in this circulation the life of business and commerce consists.
1836. Emerson, Nature, Commodity, Wks. (Bohn), II. 144. The rain feeds the plant; the plant feeds the animal: and thus the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man.
1845. M’Culloch, Taxation, II. vi. (1852), 293. The free circulation of information.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 115. This order was intended to prevent the circulation of Protestant treatises.
1880. McCarthy, Own Times, III. xxxix. 196. The most extravagant exaggerations were put into circulation.
b. The extent to which copies of a newspaper, periodical, etc., are distributed, the number of readers that it reaches.
1847. De Quincey, Secret Societies (1863), VI. 267. The journal had a limited circulation.
1857. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc., Pref. 7. [This] is sufficiently proved by the circulation which it has obtained.
† 8. A statement circulated, a rumor, a report.
1774. Burke, Sp. On Amer. Tax., There is also another circulation abroad, spread with malignant intention. Ibid. (1776), Corr. (1844), II. 105. The government circulation is, that they [the troops] retired without molestation.
9. concr. A circulating medium, a currency.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 78. A boundless paper circulation.
1866. Crump, Banking, iv. 86. Cheques, which are such an important part of the circulation of the country.
1875. Jevons, Money (1878), 56. The present circulation of China is composed to a considerable extent of the so-called Sycee silver.
