go round in circles
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
Purposeless repetition.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Christ, he was going round in circles.
We haven't quite got the hang of it, square houses and straight roads, with our little round huts and coracles we can only go round in circles.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “go round in circles” mean?
Purposeless repetition.
Is “go round in circles” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.