Home › Glossary › Letter C

Circumambulation

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The act of walking around a sacred object, used metaphorically in poetry

Detailed Definition
Circumambulation in poetry denotes a rhetorical or structural circling around a central idea without direct statement, creating mystery or reverence; it appears in mystical verse (Rumi, Traherne) and postmodern texts exploring ineffability through indirect approach.
Example
Example in poetry:
Circumambulation: In ritual poetry like T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” the journey around sacred or desolate spaces (e.g., the Thames) enacts circumambulation as a poetic and spiritual motif.
Additional Notes
Circumambulation: The act of walking around a sacred object or space; in poetry, may symbolize ritual, pilgrimage, or meditative circling—e.g., in Whitman’s processional catalogs or Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus.”
Also Known As
Walking around circling circumnavigation ritual procession Tawaf
Skip to main content