environment [E17th] Environ as a verb [ME] ‘to form a circle round, surround’ is the earliest use of this group of words to appear in English, borrowed from Old French environ formed from en- ‘around’ and viron ‘circuit’ from virer ‘to turn’, also the source of veer [L16th] ‘change direction’. Environment originally meant the act of surrounding something, then the environs [M16th] of a place; then in the mid 19th century it became the external conditions affecting life, but did not develop the modern sense until the late 19th century.