compass
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: architecture
business
carpentry
construction
entertainment
lifestyle
manufacturing
music
shipbuilding
Etymology: From Middle English compas (“a circle, circuit, limit, form, a mathematical instrument”), from Old French compas, from Medieval Latin compassus (“a circle, a circuit”), from Latin com- (“together”) + passus (“a pace, step, later a pass, way, route”); see pass, pace.
Inflected forms:
form: compasses
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: compasses
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: compassing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: compassed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: compassed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A magnetic or electronic device used to determine the cardinal directions (usually magnetic or true north).
pos: noun
examples: [H]ow many Seas to our fore-fathers impaſſable, for want of the Compaſſe?
1689/1690, John Locke, On improvement of understanding
He that […] first discovered the use of the compass […] did more for the propagation of knowledge […] than those who built workhouses.
a glance at his compass would have shown him that a northerly course instead of an easterly could not be right
gloss: A pair of compasses (a device used to draw circular arcs and transfer length measurements).
pos: noun
examples: to fix one foot of their compass wherever they please
gloss: The range of notes of a musical instrument or voice.
pos: noun
examples: You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.
gloss: A space within limits; an area.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: In going up the Missisippi ^([sic]), we meet with nothing remarkable before we come to the Detour aux Anglois, the English Reach: in that part the river takes a large compass.
Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
Clara thought she had never seen him look so small and mean. He was as if trying to get himself into the smallest possible compass.
Among tank engines, the 0-6-2 wheel arrangement was by far the most numerous, there being nearly 450 of this arrangement, which offers the advantage of good power and adhesive weight, coupled with adequate tank and bunker capacity, within a limited compass.
gloss: An enclosing limit; a boundary, a circumference.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: within the compass of an encircling wall
gloss: Moderate bounds, limits of truth; moderation; due limits; used with within.
pos: noun
examples: In two hundred years before (I speak within compass), no such commission had been executed.
"Saints!" she cried, "but what a noise you keep! Can you not speak in compass?"
gloss: Synonym of scope.
pos: noun
tags: formal
examples: the compass of his argument
There is a truth and falsehood in all propositions on this subject, and a truth and falsehood, which lie not beyond the compass of human understanding.
How very commonly we hear it remarked that such and such thoughts are beyond the compass of words! I do not believe that any thought, properly so called, is out of the reach of language.
The 1664 pages of this Collegiate make it the most comprehensive ever published. And its treatment of words is as nearly exhaustive as the compass of an abridged work permits.
gloss: Range, reach.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: Lou's not Times foole, though roſie lips and cheeks
VVithin his bending ſickles compaſſe come,
Loue alters not with his breefe houres and vveekes,
But beares it out euen to the edge of doome:
If this be error and vpon me proued,
I neuer vvrit, nor no man euer loued.
Then when our powers in points of ſwords are ioin’d
And cloſde in compaſſe of the killing bullet,
Though ſtraite the paſſage and the port be made,
That leads to Pallace of my brothers life,
Proud is his fortune if we pierce it not.
gloss: A passing round; circuit; circuitous course.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: This day I breathed first; time is come round, / And where I did begin, there shall I end; / My life is run his compass.
They fetched a compass of seven days' journey.
Kim slid out quietly into the night, walked half round the house, keeping close to the walls, and headed away from the station for a mile or so. Then, fetching a wide compass, he worked back at leisure, for he needed time to invent a story if any of Mahbub's retainers asked questions.
gloss: A curved circular form.
pos: noun
gloss: To surround; to encircle; to environ; to stretch round.
pos: verb
examples: Now all the blessings
Of a glad father compass thee about!
And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
Jack was called plucky, and he was, but it took all the strength of will that the slim, resolute engineer possessed, to hold him to his purpose, when he faced about and surveyed the unimpassive faces which compassed him.
gloss: To go about or round entirely; to traverse.
pos: verb
examples: So she goeth around the hill compassing.
gloss: To accomplish; to reach; to achieve; to obtain.
pos: verb
tags: dated
examples: […] tho' theſe ſeem'd to be very unfit Inſtruments for compaſſing of that great Deſign for which they were then employ'd, becauſe of their Inability and Uncapacity in performing the Work ſo very great and important; […]
[...] they never find ways sufficient to compass that end.
[...] to settle the end of our action or disputation; and then to take fit and effectual means to compass that end.
[...] and was an artful flatterer, when that was necessary to compass his end, in which generally he was successful.
The immediate problem is how to compass that end: by the seizure of territory or by the cultivation of the goodwill of the people whose business she seeks.
gloss: To plot; to scheme (against someone).
pos: verb
tags: dated
examples: That he plotted and compassed to raise Sedition and Rebellion [...]
But it went beyond it by the loose construction of compassing to depose the King, …
The Bavarian felt a mad wave of desire for her sweep over him. What scheme wouldn't he compass to mould that girl to his wishes.
Synonyms: pair of compasses
Derived words: all points of the compass
astrocompass
beam compass
biocompass
bow compass
box the compass
Brunton compass
cabin compass
Chinese compass
color compass
compass cactus
compass card
compass deflection
compass dial
compass error
compass jellyfish
compassless
compass needle
compass out
compass plane
compass plant
compass point
compass rose
compass saw
compass swing
compass termite
compass timber
compass wallah
compass window
every point of the compass
fetch a compass
gyrocompass
gyro compass
gyromagnetic compass
gyroscope compass
gyroscopic compass
hanging compass
magnetic compass
mariner's compass
moral compass
pair of compasses
prismatic compass
qibla compass
radio compass
scribing compass
Square and Compass
telltale compass
tell-tale compass
variation compass
accompass
compassable
encompass
incompass
outcompass
Translations: