The quality or state of lying around something; the condition of being positioned all around something else.
From Latin 'circum' (around) + 'jacens' (lying near, from 'jacere' meaning to lie). This formal noun form developed in philosophical and geographic writing to describe spatial relationships.
While 'circumjacent' (the adjective) is more common, 'circumjacence' appears in old geographic texts describing how smaller territories lie around a central power—it's the noun form of a spatial relationship that shaped medieval politics!
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