<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>Also called finger ring.</li><li>a typically circular band of metal or other durable material, especially one of gold or other precious metal, often set with gems, for wearing on the finger as an ornament, a token of betrothal or marriage, etc.</li><li>a similar band of metal or other durable material worn as an ornament on another part of the body, such as on the toe or in a piercing.</li><li>anything resembling a band or circle: Fluff the napkins and pull them through the napkin rings. He lit his cigarette and blew a smoke ring.</li><li>Synonyms: annulus, hoop, circlet, circle.</li><li>a circular or surrounding line or mark: After a long, sleepless night, there were dark rings around his eyes.</li><li>a circular course: A group of us kids were playing one of those games where you have to dance in a ring.</li><li>a number of people or things situated in a circle or in an approximately circular arrangement: a ring of hills; a ring of stones; a ring of spectators.</li><li>the outside edge of a circular object; rim: When the two coins are compared, there are differences in the color of the brass alloy used for the outer ring.</li><li>an enclosed area, often circular, as for a sports contest or exhibition: a circus ring.</li><li>Synonyms: circle, rink, arena.</li><li>a bullring.</li><li>an enclosure in which boxing and wrestling matches take place, usually consisting of a square, canvas-covered platform with surrounding ropes that are supported at each corner by posts: It was nearly a year before he recovered from his injuries and was ready to box again, but he's back in the ring tonight.</li><li>the sport of boxing; prizefighting: In the heyday of the ring, fighters could make a living at their sport.</li><li>(formerly in the United States, now only in Britain) an area in a racetrack where bookmakers take bets.</li><li>a group of people cooperating for unethical, illicit, or illegal purposes, such as to control stock-market prices, manipulate politicians, or elude the law: The police busted a ring of smugglers.</li><li>Synonyms: syndicate, mob, gang, league, confederacy.</li><li>a single turn in a spiral or helix or in a spiral course.</li><li>Geometry: the area or space between two concentric circles.</li><li>annual ring.</li><li>a circle of bark cut from around a tree.</li><li>Chemistry: a number of atoms so united that they may be graphically represented in cyclic form.</li><li>Compare chain.</li><li>Architecture: rowlock.</li><li>Nautical: a bowlike or circular piece at the top of an anchor, to which the chain or cable is secured.</li><li>Also called spinning ring.</li><li>Textiles: (in a ring-spinning frame) a circular track of highly polished steel on which the traveler moves and which twists the yarn by variations in its vertical movement.</li><li>Also called ring gauge.</li><li>a unit of measurement of the diameter of cigars, equal to 1/64 of an inch (0.64 millimeter).</li><li>Automotive, Machinery: piston ring.</li><li>Mathematics: a set that is closed under the operations of addition and multiplication and that is an Abelian group with respect to addition and an associative semigroup with respect to multiplication and in which the distributive laws relating the two operations hold.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb (used with object)</strong></p><ul><li>ringed, ring·ing.</li><li>to surround; encircle: The lake is ringed with forest and farmland.</li><li>to hem in (animals) by riding or circling about them: The cowboys ringed the cattle they would be driving to market.</li><li>(in horseshoes, ringtoss, etc.) to encircle (a stake or peg) with a ring, horseshoe, etc.</li><li>to insert a ring through the nose of (an animal).</li></ul><p><strong>Verb (used without object)</strong></p><ul><li>ringed, ring·ing.</li><li>to form a ring or rings: A crowd of onlookers ringed around the man who had fallen.</li><li>to move in a ring or a constantly curving course: The road rings around the mountain.</li></ul>