Word.ws English Dictionary

tell-tale compass

tell-tale compass is the alternative form of telltale compass.

Meaning of telltale compass

Noun

telltale compass (plural telltale compasses)

  1. A compass installed in the cabin so that the captain or other officer may check the course of a ship without going to the deck; often upturned and suspended from the ceiling.
    • To my great surprise, however, when I emerged from my state-room and caught a glimpse of the tell-tale compass hanging in gimbals in the skylight opening of the main cabin, I saw that the ship was heading to the eastward! — Harry Collingwood, "The Pirate Slaver", 1895
    Synonyms:
    cabin compass

Forms of tell-tale compass

pluraltell-tale compasses

Questions about tell-tale compass

What is tell-tale compass the alternative form of?
Tell-tale compass is the alternative form of telltale compass.

Words near tell-tale compass in the dictionary

  1. tell you what
  2. tell-a-story
  3. tell-all
  4. tell-alls
  5. tell-tale
  6. tell-tale compass
  7. tell-tale compasses
  8. tell-tale-tit
  9. tell-tale-tits
  10. tell-tales
  11. tell-troth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tell-tale compass (page history and authors); telltale compass (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.

Last updated:

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