entry
encompass
/ɛnˈkʌmpəs/surround, include, or contain completely
From O.French, from Medieval/Vulgar Latin compass (circle).
from Middle English encompassen. By surface analysis, en- + compass.
Word Ancestry
from Middle English encompassen. By surface analysis, en- + compass.
A compass began not as a sailor’s direction-finder but as an idea you could walk: Latin com- meant “together,” and passus meant “a step.” In Vulgar Latin, *compassare meant “to pace out,” as if measuring a boundary one footfall at a time; Old French compas then covered circles, distances, and limits. English borrowed compass around 1300, and by the 1550s en- had been attached to it to create the vivid sense “put within a circle.” Only later did compass acquire its nautical meaning and its musical one—the range of notes a voice can produce—so a single word came to hold maps, geometry, boundaries, and melodies. To encompass something is therefore to draw a mental circle around it: whether the boundary is a fortress wall, a field of knowledge, or an entire sorrowful childhood, nothing lies outside the line.
The Story
A compass began not as a sailor’s direction-finder but as an idea you could walk: Latin com- meant “together,” and passus meant “a step.” In Vulgar Latin, *compassare meant “to pace out,” as if measuring a boundary one footfall at a time; Old French compas then covered circles, distances, and limits. English borrowed compass around 1300, and by the 1550s en- had been attached to it to create the vivid sense “put within a circle.” Only later did compass acquire its nautical meaning and its musical one—the range of notes a voice can produce—so a single word came to hold maps, geometry, boundaries, and melodies. To encompass something is therefore to draw a mental circle around it: whether the boundary is a fortress wall, a field of knowledge, or an entire sorrowful childhood, nothing lies outside the line.
Kin & Kindred
From 'compass'·circle, circuit, extent; something measured by pacing
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia
Wiktionary