the circle gets the square
- idiom
- Informal
:
¡tenemos un ganador!
- After answering the final trivia question correctly, she announced, 'the circle gets the square!'
Examples
-
With a confident grin, he declared 'the circle gets the square' when his team won the round.
-
Whenever they win an argument, they like to say 'the circle gets the square.'
-
Yes! the circle gets the square!
-
Finally, the circle gets the square!
-
After answering the final trivia question correctly, she announced, 'the circle gets the square!'
-
With a confident grin, he declared 'the circle gets the square' when his team won the round.
-
Whenever they win an argument, they like to exclaim, 'the circle gets the square!'
Synonyms
16
7.4
A short way to show approval or praise for something done well
9
5.8
You say this when someone wins or something works well
Antonyms
How Successful
∞
1.0
- Informal
∞
1.0
- Informal
1
4.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
the + circle + get + the + square
This phrase is a culturally specific game-show announcement whose meaning (a player scores or has a correct answer) depends on the conventions of 'Hollywood Squares' rather than on literal semantics. A B1 learner who knows 'circle', 'gets' and 'square' would only retrieve literal shape/group senses and would not predict the idiomatic game-related sense, so the expression is not compositionally transparent.
Etymology
The circle gets the square comes from the game show 'Hollywood Squares'. On the show, a player's mark, a circle, was put into a celebrity's empty square when they answered right, so saying it today means 'you scored' or 'you won'.