ambit

Etymology

From Late Middle English ambyte, borrowed from Latin ambitus (“circuit; circumference, perimeter; area within a perimeter; ground around a building; cycle, orbit, revolution”) (compare Late Latin ambitus (“neighbourhood; wall of a castle, monastery, or town; cloister; parish boundary”)), from ambīre + -tus (suffix forming verbal nouns from verbs). Ambīre is the present active infinitive of ambiō (“to go around, to skirt; to encircle, surround”), from ambi- (“prefix meaning ‘both, on both sides’”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- (“front; face; forehead”)) + eō (“to go, move”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- (“to go”)). The English word is a doublet of ambitus.

noun

1. (by extension)
   1. The extent of actions, thoughts, or the meaning of words, etc.
   2. The area or sphere of control and influence of something.
2. (archaic) The boundary around a building, town, region, etc.
3. (archaic, rare) The circumference of something circular; also, an arc; a circuit, an orbit.
4. (obsolete) Chiefly in the plural form ambits: the open space surrounding a building, town, etc.; the grounds or precincts of a place.