Word.ws English Dictionary

incompass

incompass is the archaic form of encompass.

Meaning of encompass

Verb

encompass (third-person singular simple present encompasses, present participle encompassing, simple past and past participle encompassed)

  1. (transitive) To form a circle around; to encircle.
  2. (transitive) To include within its scope; to circumscribe or go round so as to surround; to enclose; to contain.
    • his piercing inſtruments of ſight:
      Whose fiery circles beare encompaſſed
      A heauen of heauenly bodies in their Spheares:c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
    Synonyms:
    embrace
  3. (transitive) To include completely; to describe fully or comprehensively.
    • This book on English grammar encompasses all irregular verbs.
    Synonyms:
    comprehend
  4. (transitive) To go around, especially, to circumnavigate.
    • Drake encompassed the globe.

Forms of incompass

third-person singular presentincompasses
present participleincompassing
past participleincompassed
pastincompassed

Origin of incompass

From in- + compass.

Questions about incompass

What is incompass the archaic form of?
Incompass is the archaic form of encompass.

Words near incompass in the dictionary

  1. incomparable
  2. incomparableness
  3. incomparables
  4. incomparably
  5. incompared
  6. incompass
  7. incompassed
  8. incompasses
  9. incompassing
  10. incompassion
  11. incompassionate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: incompass (page history and authors); encompass (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “incompass.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/incompass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.