encompass

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English encompassen (“to surround; engulf or overwhelm”),^[2][3] formed from English en- + compass.^{[4][5][6][7][8]} Barnhart takes the base to be the Middle English verb compassen (“to surround”),^[3] the OED, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster the noun.^[4][5][7] Compass is from Old French compas (“circle, extent”), from compasser (“to go around, measure”), from Vulgar Latin *compassō (“to pace out”), formed from com- (“with, together”) and passus (“a step”).^[5] The OED compares the obsolete Spanish encompasar, formed in the same way.^[4] The Shorter Oxford also records an obsolete spelling with the prefix in-.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To surround, or to engulf or overwhelm: about 1350, in the Midland Prose Psalter, "Þe sorwes of helle encumpassed me".^[2][3] The OED's first record is much later, from 1553, in Richard Eden's Treatyse of the Newe India,^[4] and Etymonline dates the word to the 1550s.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant to surround, and in the 16th century it was used of encircling like a ring, of people standing round someone to protect, attend or attack, and of enveloping something like a shell.^[4][2] Shakespeare used it in The Merry Wives of Windsor for outwitting or "getting round" a person, a sense that did not last.^[4] From 1640 to 1790 it could mean to go all the way round something.^[4][7] Johnson (1755) gave "to enclose; to encircle" as its first sense, quoting Richard III.^[9] The sense "to include comprehensively" is the usual one today;^[10][7][8] from 1882 the word was also used for compass in the sense of bringing something about.^[4][10]

Timeline

• c. 1350 – to surround; to engulf or overwhelm.^[2][3]
• 1553 – to surround entirely, envelop; to contain.^[4][5]
• 1555 – to encircle like a ring; of people, to surround in attendance or hostility.^[4]
• before 1616 – to outwit a person (obsolete).^[4]
• 1640 – to make a circuit of, go all round (obsolete by 1790).^[4]
• 1882 – to bring about, contrive.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To form a circle around; to surround or encircle: A ring of hills encompasses the town.^[10][7][4]
2. To enclose or envelop completely: Smoke encompassed the station.^[7][4]
3. To include fully or take in: The course encompasses the whole of European history.^[10][7][8]
4. To bring about or contrive, especially something harmful.^[10][4]
5. (obsolete, 1640–1790) To go all the way around; to make a circuit of.^[7][4]

Word family

• encompassment
• unencompassed
• all-encompassing

Related words

• compass
• pace

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins