ring
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A bird band, a round piece of metal put around a bird's leg used for identification and studies of migration.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ringIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uk
A bird band, a round piece of metal put around a bird's leg used for identification and studies of migration.
UK
A strip of material attached to the leg of a bird to identify it (as in studies of bird migration)
jewelry
Jewelry consisting of a circlet of precious metal (often set with jewels) worn on the finger
“She had rings on every finger.”
jewelry
A round piece of (precious) metal worn around the finger or through the ear, nose, etc.
physical
A solid object in the shape of a circle.
A circumscribing object, (roughly) circular and hollow, looking like an annual ring, earring, finger ring etc.
verb
transitive
To enclose or surround.
transitivefiguratively
To make an incision around; to girdle; to cut away a circular tract of bark from a tree in order to kill it.
transitive
To steal and change the identity of (cars) in order to resell them.
Australiatransitive
To ride around (a group of animals, especially cattle) to keep them milling in one place; hence (intransitive), to work as a drover, to muster cattle.
intransitive
Of a bell, etc., to produce a resonant sound.
Sound loudly and sonorously
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A bird band, a round piece of metal put around a bird's leg used for identification and studies of migration.
Used this way, ring is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ring
- “She had rings on every finger.”noun
- “The distinctive ring of the church bell.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A person who rings church bells (as for summoning the congregation).
The sound of a bell ringing.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Flexible armor made of interlinked metal rings.
African parakeet.
Common pheasant having bright plumage and a white neck ring.
Any of numerous small nonvenomous North American snakes with a yellow or orange ring around the neck.
Small circular area such as that around the human nipple or an inflamed area around a pimple or insect bite.
Sound loudly.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Any of numerous small nonvenomous North American snakes with a yellow or orange ring around the neck.
First row of seating.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.