compass
noun
an instrument for determining directions, as by means of a freely rotating magnetized needle that indicates magnetic north.
compassed
-
past participleof compass.past participle
A verb form used in perfect and passive verb constructions and that can also function as a modifier.
-
past tense formof compass.past tense
Used to describe completed actions or previous habitual actions.
compassnounan instrument for determining directions, as by means of a freely rotating magnetized needle that indicates magnetic north.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Wild Swans” would seem to have laid bare every cruel irony of the volatile times it compassed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026
The "great tracts of land" he imagines "compassed about with heavens fair" are not necessarily those of Eden.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 20, 2010
Said 80-year-old Sir J. J. Thomson, famed discoverer of the electron, who once was Rutherford's teacher: ''His work was so great that it cannot be compassed in a few words.
From Time Magazine Archive
She compassed a weighty historical tome in 1922, after which fiction-writing seemed like child's play.
From Time Magazine Archive
“I can’t see faw the life of me, Mr. Bombs, just how you could have compassed all that,” Miss Drawling was saying, when something in the nature of a revelation cut short her sentence.
From The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury by Asenath Carver Coolidge
