Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In ship-building, incurvated, curved, or bent: as, compassing timbers. See compass, v. t, 6.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Shipbuilding) Curved; bent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of compass.
  • adjective shipbuilding curved; bent

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Irritated by this reply, and the contemptuous glance with which it was accompanied, the vindictive triumvirate turned from the king to his court; and having failed in compassing the destruction of Bruce and his more renowned friend, they determined at least to make a wreck of their moral fame.

    The Scottish Chiefs 1875

  • William Grigg on August 1, 2009 04: 33 PM medieval English law, the crime of "high treason" included the offense of "compassing" (or imagining) "the death of our lord the king, of his lady our queen, or of their eldest son and heir."

    WHAT REALLY HAPPENED 2009

  • He was out early and late, compassing prodigious climbs and tramps -- once reaching as far as the gold mines Tom had spoken of, and being away two days.

    CHAPTER IX 2010

  • A compassing maturity is criteria for the job, a balanced and seasoned intellect and personality.

    Former Reagan Aides: Obama Is A Bit Like Reagan 2009

  • House I saw Abd al-Masih the monk also compassing the

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • And even before that, you know, it's interesting, he spoke a lot about how he played the role of the Joker in that film and how that role was so compassing to him.

    CNN Transcript Feb 6, 2008 2008

  • Because the more epic and all-compassing the mistake, the more epic and all-encompassing come the rationalizations, the scapegoating and the compulsion for do-overs.

    Tales of Angst, Alienation and Martial Law: Roasting Marshmallows on the American Reichstag Fire to Come 2007

  • That's an inherent problem for a movement en-compassing disparate groups ranging from Zapatistas and Greens to social democrats.

    Mexico: Ready For Prime Time? 2007

  • I may have thought how serviceable his inheritance would be to us, and may have wished him dead; but I believe I had no thought of compassing his death.

    Master Humphrey's Clock 2007

  • But that the one thing needful for compassing this end was, that the people of England should second the effort of an insignificant corporation, the establishment of which, a few years before the epoch of the great plague and the great fire, had been as little noticed, as they were conspicuous.

    Essays 2007

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