noun
A magnetic or electronic device used to determine the cardinal directions (usually magnetic or true north).
[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 pair of compasses (a device used to draw circular arcs and transfer length measurements).
to fix one foot of their compass wherever they please
The range of notes of a musical instrument or voice.
You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.
A space within limits; an area.
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.
An enclosing limit; a boundary, a circumference.
within the compass of an encircling wall
verb
To surround; to encircle; to environ; to stretch round.
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.
To go about or round entirely; to traverse.
To accomplish; to reach; to achieve; to obtain.
[…] 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 plot; to scheme (against someone).
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, …
adv
In a circuit; round about.
[T]he Towne is impailed about halfe a mile compaſſe.
Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards compasse were digged up coals and incinerated substances, […]