Compass (meaning)

The single word compass (the first syllable is pronounced like the verb 'come'; the second vowel is the shwa 'COME-pes', IPA: /ˈkʌm pəs/ ) can confuse readers. Apart from its most common current meanings, which are names of various instruments used for navigation and for mathematical drawing (see the explanation and differentiation at Compass - compasses), there are several related different meanings in general usage. These are formed on two broad ideas: one of 'measurement', and particularly the idea of 'walking in step' (Latin: cum passus, 'with step' 'together pace'); and the other of 'circuit', or 'stepping round' (which goes back to the same idea).

• The noun compass meant, first:
  • as a non-count noun, 'in due proportion', 'regular', 'appropriate', with further connotations of approval: 'in order', 'moderate', 'proper'. The archaic phrase to keep compass meant, in military circles, 'to keep step'; for musicians, it meant 'to be in time [with the ensemble]'. Within [or 'out of'] compass meant 'to be within [or outside] the bounds', 'in [or out of] moderation', 'suitably or decently [or not]'.
  • By a fairly natural extension, this came to mean the boundary, or limit, of a particular space - either figuratively, as where a current equivalent of "out of all compass" is "beyond the bounds of decent behaviour"; or more literally, as in the now no longer used meaning as 'a circumference', 'a circle', or 'anything circular in shape [e.g. the horizon, or the globe]'.
    • This in turn gave the meaning to one of the countable nouns 'a compass' - an older version of what we now call a pair of compasses, the instrument for drawing circles -
    • and to another, the navigational instrument known as a compass, sometimes particularized as the mariner's compass. This was derived, it appears, from one or other, or both, of the facts that the early compass was always held in ('in the compass of') a circular bowl and indicated its results by means of a circular card; and that an earlier meaning of the equivalent word in German, zirkel (whose first meaning is now '[a] circle' asnd second '[a pair of] compasses') was the gnomon, or pointer of a sundial. (The fact that the two different instruments, about whose form (singular or plural) and spellings schoolteachers have to be so concerned about share the ultimate derivation is one of the curiosities to be found in etymology.)
    • A compass was also used for arcs, or divisions of the circumference of a circle, as in archery, where it could be used for the curve of a bow, or the vertical flight of an arrow.
  • The larger sense of 'boundary', 'enclosing limit', could be used in non-physical senses, as in changes occurring within 'the compass of a reign', or events occurring 'within the compass of a [part of a] book',
    • and more generally 'range', sometimes 'intellectual capacity' ("Mathematical physics is beyond my compass"), and, in music, specifically the full range of notes which a given voice or instrument can produce.

• As a verb, 'to compass ' means a) 'to travel round', 'to circumnavigate'; b) 'to enclose', both literally and figuratively. (In current English, the verb chosen is more usually 'to encompass.) It has also been used to mean
  • 'to plan', or 'to contrive' ("Usually in a bad sense", says OED): this sometimes comes to mean the achievement of the goal, as when Alexander Pope wrote "Since none can compass more than they Intend" (Essay on Criticism, 1711, cited OED).
  • 'to surround', or 'to form a circle round', 'to besiege'; also 'to be in a position around', as "the sea compasses the land"

Various other obsolete meanings of the central word compass are recorded in OED, q.v. at compass, n.1, adj., and adv., and compass, v.¹. There were also two very different uses, both obsolete.

a) In Early Modern English, 'a compass' was sometimes 'a stratagem', 'an artful device', 'a cunning trick'.

b) A little later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, compass was a usual spelling for what is now written compost - substance prepared to enrich ground for growing plants. Most gardeners nowadays use vegetable compost, formed by rotting plant waste, but then it as often meant animal manure, even sometimes rotted fish. This word occurs as both noun and verb.