CLOSE IN

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does close in mean? 

• CLOSE IN (verb)
  The verb CLOSE IN has 2 senses:

1. advance or converge on

2. surround completely

  Familiarity information: CLOSE IN used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CLOSE IN (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Advance or converge on

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

close in; draw in

Context example:

The police were closing in on him

Hypernyms (to "close in" is one way to...):

advance; go on; march on; move on; pass on; progress (move forward, also in the metaphorical sense)

Verb group:

draw in; get in; move in; pull in (of trains; move into (a station))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Surround completely

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

close in; enclose; inclose; shut in

Context example:

They closed in the porch with a fence

Hypernyms (to "close in" is one way to...):

border; environ; ring; skirt; surround (extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "close in"):

bank (enclose with a bank)

hedge; hedge in (enclose or bound in with or as it with a hedge or hedges)

fort; fortify (enclose by or as if by a fortification)

corral (enclose in a corral)

casket (enclose in a casket)

cordon off; rope in; rope off (divide by means of a rope)

fence; fence in (enclose with a fence)

encapsulate (enclose in a capsule or other small container)

dike; dyke (enclose with a dike)

insert; tuck (fit snugly into)

glass; glass in (enclose with glass)

border; frame; frame in (enclose in or as if in a frame)

bury; eat up; immerse; swallow; swallow up (enclose or envelop completely, as if by swallowing)

case; encase; incase (enclose in, or as if in, a case)

enshrine; shrine (enclose in a shrine)

bower; embower (enclose in a bower)

wall in; wall up (enclose with a wall)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

During this last voyage I had no commerce with the master or any of his men; but, pretending I was sick, kept close in my cabin.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Too weak to wonder at anything, she only smiled and nestled close in the loving arms about her, feeling that the hungry longing was satisfied at last.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft.

(Dawn Spacecraft Begins Approach to Dwarf Planet Ceres, NASA)

We were now close in; thirty or forty strokes and we should beach her, for the ebb had already disclosed a narrow belt of sand below the clustering trees.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Then, when I flash a light upon them, close in swiftly.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then he felt her body yielding, and once again she was close in his arms and lips were pressed on lips.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Composed of an orbiter and lander, Rosetta's objectives upon arrival at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August are to study the celestial object up close in unprecedented detail, prepare for landing a probe on the comet's nucleus in November, and track its changes as it sweeps past the sun.

(Rosetta closing in on comet, NASA)