Boxing the compass

Boxing the compass is a way of naming and locating all of the directions on a compass. Imagine holding a pizza slice in your hand with the crust at the bottom. The top point would be North, the bottom point would be South, the right point would be East, and the left point would be West.

Now pretend you cut that pizza slice into four smaller slices. The slice to the top right would be called Northeast, the slice to the bottom right would be Southeast, the slice to the bottom left would be Southwest, and the slice to the top left would be Northwest.

But we can get even more specific than that! Let's say we cut the pizza slice into eight equally sized slices. Starting from North and moving clockwise, we have North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, and Northwest.

So when someone says "boxing the compass," they're just talking about naming and finding all of these different directions on a compass.