به عنوان یک اسم، "قطب نما" بسته به زمینه می تواند معانی متعددی داشته باشد، اما رایج ترین تعریف این است:
ابزاری برای رسم دایره، اندازه گیری فواصل، و تعیین جهت های متشکل از دو بازو، که یکی از آنها محور است و یک خودکار یا مداد به انتهای آن متصل است، در حالی که دیگری دارای نقطه ای است که به عنوان محور استفاده می شود و اغلب دارای مقیاسی برای اندازه گیری زاویه است.
قطب نما مغناطیسی، که ابزاری است که برای تعیین جهت استفاده می‌شود، معمولاً از یک سوزن مغناطیسی تشکیل شده است که به سمت شمال مغناطیسی اشاره می‌کند و روی یک محور معلق است.
به عنوان یک فعل، "قطب نما" به معنای احاطه کردن یا احاطه کردن، درک کردن یا درک کردن، یا دستیابی یا انجام دادن است.
p>
1. The night was moonless, the forest unnaturally silent, but like a compass needle drawn to magnetic north, I stumbled straight back to camp.
2. I could tell them how we loved to take rambles in the countryside using a compass and a map to navigate.
3. Seeing a compass as a child gave him insight, that there are invisible forces guiding the universe, with rules that could be discovered and understood.
4. The points of the compass, too, are in inextricable confusion the writer appearing to be ignorant that, on a lunar map, these are not in accordance with terrestrial points the east being to the left, etc.
5. That way is up, he thought, setting his inner compass by the string.
6. As he fought off the pirates, Captain Drake would take any reprieve he could to glance at his compass in order to make sure that the ship was still on course, despite the battle.
7. He reached into his pocket and produced the makeshift compass.
8. Jordan watched as the compass spun and spun and spun.
9. They stood out to sea, steering for the straits we, without looking to any compass save the land we had before us, set ourselves to row with such energy that by sunset we were so near that we might easily, we thought, land before the night was far advanced.
10. There he lay like a tortoise enclosed in its shell, or a side of bacon between two kneading-troughs, or a boat bottom up on the beach nor did the gang of jokers feel any compassion for him when they saw him down so far from that, extinguishing their torches they began to shout afresh and to renew the calls to arms with such energy, trampling on poor Sancho, and slashing at him over the shield with their swords in such a way that, if he had not gathered himself together and made himself small and drawn in his head between the shields, it would have fared badly with the poor governor, as, squeezed into that narrow compass, he lay, sweating and sweating again, and commending himself with all his heart to God to deliver him from his present peril.