different between compass vs province

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?m?p?s, IPA^(key): /?k?m.p?s/
• Rhymes: -?mp?s

Etymology 1

From Middle English compas (“a circle, circuit, limit, form, a mathematical instrument”), from Old French compas, from Medieval Latin compassus (“a circle, a circuit”), from Latin com- (“together”) + passus (“a pace, step, later a pass, way, route”); see pass, pace.

Noun

compass (plural compasses)

1. A magnetic or electronic device used to determine the cardinal directions (usually magnetic or true north).
   • 1689/1690, John Locke, On improvement of understanding

     He that [...] first discovered the use of the compass [...] did more for the propagation of knowledge [...] than those who built workhouses.

   • 1890, Wilhelm Westhofen, The Forth Bridge

     a glance at his compass would have shown him that a northerly course instead of an easterly could not be right

2. A pair of compasses (a device used to draw an arc or circle).
   • 1701, Jonathan Swift, A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome, Chapter 5

     to fix one foot of their compass wherever they please

3. (music) The range of notes of a musical instrument or voice.
4. (obsolete) A space within limits; an area.
   • 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.

   • 1711, Joseph Addison, The Spectator

     Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 14

     Clara thought she had never seen him look so small and mean. He was as if trying to get himself into the smallest possible compass.
5. (obsolete) An enclosing limit; a boundary, a circumference.
6. Moderate bounds, limits of truth; moderation; due limits; used with within.
   • c. 1610, John Davies, Historical Tracts

     In two hundred years before (I speak within compass), no such commission had been executed.

7. (archaic) scope.
   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion Book 8

     the compass of his argument

   • 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.

   • 1844, Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia

     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.

8. (obsolete) A passing round; circuit; circuitous course.
   • 1611, King James Version, 2 Kings iii. 9

     They fetched a compass of seven days' journey.

Synonyms

• (magnetic direction finder): magnetic compass
• (device used to draw circular curves): pair of compasses

Hyponyms

• (pair of compasses): beam compass

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English compassen (“to go around, make a circuit, draw a circle, contrive, intend”), from Old French compasser; from the noun; see compass as a noun.

Verb

compass (third-person singular simple present compasses, present participle compassing, simple past and past participle compassed)

1. To surround; to encircle; to environ; to stretch round.
   • 1610, The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, act 5 scene 1

     Now all the blessings

     Of a glad father compass thee about!

   • And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
2. To go about or round entirely; to traverse.
3. (dated) To accomplish; to reach; to achieve; to obtain.
   • 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.

   • 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.

4. (dated) To plot; to scheme (against someone).
   • 1600, The Arraignment and Judgement of Captain Thomas Lee, published in 1809, by R. Bagshaw, in Cobbett's 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.

Synonyms

• (surround): encircle, environ, surround
• (go about or around entirely): cover, traverse
• (accomplish): accomplish, achieve, attain, gain, get to, reach
• (plot (against someone)): conspire, plot, scheme

Translations

Adverb

compass (comparative more compass, superlative most compass)

1. (obsolete) In a circuit; round about.
   • 1658, Thomas Browne, Urne-Burial,^[1] Penguin (2005), ?ISBN, page 9:

     Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards compasse were digged up coals and incinerated substances, […]

References

• compass in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• compass in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Middle English

Noun

compass

1. Alternative form of compas

English

Etymology

From Middle English provynce, from Anglo-Norman province, Middle French province, from Latin pr?vincia (“territory brought under Roman domination; official duty, office, charge, province”), from Proto-Indo-European *pr?w- (“right judge, master”). Cognate with Gothic ???????????????????????? (frauja, “lord, master”), Old English fr?a (“ruler, lord, king, master”). See also frow.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p??v?ns/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p??v?ns/

Noun

province (plural provinces)

1. A region of the earth or of a continent; a district or country. [from 14th c.]
   • 1859, Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species:

     We should find, as we do find, some groups of beings greatly, and some only slightly modified […] in the different great geographical provinces of the world.

2. An administrative subdivision of certain countries, including Canada and China. [from 14th c.]
   • 2016, The Guardian, 4 May:

     All of Fort McMurray, with the exception of Parson’s Creek, was under a mandatory evacuation order on Tuesday, said Robin Smith, press secretary for the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo in the Canadian province [of Alberta].

3. (Roman history) An area outside Italy which is administered by a Roman governor. [from 14th c.]
   • 2008, Mark Brown, The Guardian, 28 November:

     He reminded his audience of events in 88BC, when the same Mithridates invaded the Roman province of Asia, on the western coast of Turkey.

4. (Christianity) An area under the jurisdiction of an archbishop, typically comprising a number of adjacent dioceses. [from 14th c.]
   • 1838, The Churchman, p. 44:

     In 1309, neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor his suffragans would attend in Parliament while the Archbishop of York had the cross borne erect before him in the province of Canterbury.

5. (Roman Catholicism) An area under the jurisdiction of a provincial within a monastic order.
6. (in the plural, chiefly with definite article) The parts of a country outside its capital city. [from 17th c.]
   • 1937, The Guardian, 1 April:

     To-day the first part of the new Indian Constitution comes into force with the granting of a large measure of autonomy to the provinces.

7. An area of activity, responsibility or knowledge; the proper concern of a particular person or concept. [from 17th c.]
   • 1984, Dorothee Sölle, The Strength of the Weak: Toward a Christian Feminist Identity, page 37:

     Just as money is the province of the economy and truth the province of science and scholarship, so love is the province of the family (Niklas Luhmann).

Usage notes

Province is the generic English term for such primary divisions of a country, but is not used where another official term has widespread use, such as France's regions and departments, Switzerland's cantons, or America's and Australia's states. Territories and colonies are sometimes distinguished from provinces as unorganized areas of low or foreign population, which are not considered an integral part of the country. Sovereign subdivisions of a larger whole, such as the principalities of the former Holy Roman Empire or the countries with the European Union, are likewise not usually described as provinces.

Synonyms

• (principal subdivision of a state): circuit, tao, dao, route, lu (imperial and early Republican China)

Coordinate terms

• canton (Swiss); county (British); department (French); oblast (Russian); state (USA, Australian); voivodeship (Poland)
• shire
• territory

Derived terms

• provincehood
• Provincetown
• provincewide

Related terms

• provincial

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: provins

Translations

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin pr?vincia. Doublet of Provence.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p??.v??s/

Noun

province f (plural provinces)

1. province
2. the countryside (of France), the French regions (other than the Parisian region), provincial France

Related terms

• provincial

Further reading

• “province” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Noun

province f pl

1. plural of provincia

Synonyms

• provincie

Middle English

Noun

province

1. Alternative form of provynce

Middle French

Noun

province f (plural provinces)

1. province (subdivision of a territory)

Descendants

• French: province
• ? Middle English: provynce, provynse, province, provyns
  • English: province
    • Tok Pisin: provins
  • Scots: province

References

• province on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)

Old French

Alternative forms

• provinz, pruvince

Noun

province f (oblique plural provinces, nominative singular province, nominative plural provinces)

1. province (subdivision of a territory)

Descendants

• Middle French: province
  • French: province
  • ? Middle English: provynce, provynse, province, provyns
    • English: province
      • Tok Pisin: provins
    • Scots: province
• Norman: provînche, provinche

References

• province on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (province, supplement)

Walloon

Noun

province f (plural provinces)

1. province