noun

• (music) The range of notes of a musical instrument or voice.
  "You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass."
• (obsolete) A space within limits; an area.
  "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."
• (obsolete) An enclosing limit; a boundary, a circumference.
  "within the compass of an encircling wall"
• (formal) Synonym of scope.
  "the compass of his argument"

verb

• (dated) To accomplish; to reach; to achieve; to obtain.
  "[…] tho' theſe ſeem'd to be very unfit Inſtruments for compaſſing of that great Deſign for which they were then employ'd, becauſe of their Inability and Uncapacity in performing the Work ſo very great and important; […]"
• (dated) To plot; to scheme (against someone).
  "That he plotted and compassed to raise Sedition and Rebellion [...]"

adv

• (obsolete) In a circuit; round about.
  "[T]he Towne is impailed about halfe a mile compaſſe."