1763, M. Le Page Du Pratz, History of Louisiana (PG), page 47:
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.
1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral, Oxford University Press (1973), section 8:
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.
puhekieltä A passing round; circuit; circuitous course.
Bible, 2 Kings iii. 9
They fetched a compass of seven days' journey.
This day I breathed first; time is come round, / And where I did begin, there shall I end; / My life is run his compass.
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.
1763, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emilius; or, an essay on education, translated by M. Nugent, page 117:
... they never find ways sufficient to compass that end.
1816, Catholicon: or, the Christian Philosopher, volume 3, from July to December 1816, page 56:
... to settle the end of our action or disputation; and then to take fit and effectual means to compass that end.
1857, Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnets History of His Own Time: from the Restoration of King Charles the Second to the Treaty of Peace at Utrecht in the Reign of Queen Anne'', page 657:
... and was an artful flatterer, when that was necessary to compass his end, in which generally he was successful.
1921 November 23, The New Republic, volume 28, number 364, page 2:
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.
1600, The Arraignment and Judgement of Captain Thomas Lee, published in 1809, by R. Bagshaw, in Cobbetts Complete Collection of State Trials'', volume 1, page 1403–04:
That he plotted and compassed to raise Sedition and Rebellion ...
1794 November 1, Speech of Mr. Erskine in Behalf of Hardy, published in 1884, by Chauncey Allen Goodrich, in Select British Eloquence, page 719:
But it went beyond it by the loose construction of compassing to depose the King, ...
1915, The Wireless Age, volume 2, page 580:
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.
puhekieltä In a circuit; round about.
1658, (w), Urne-Burial,http://www.amazon.com/Urne-Burial-Penguin-Great-Thomas-Browne/dp/0141023910 Penguin (2005), ISBN 9780141023915, page 9:
Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards compasse were digged up coals and incinerated substances, (..)