1. The first book in the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman.
2. An object of the same name or alethiometer (literally Truth-Measure) within said book. It is used by Lyra (the protaganist) to find truth and meaning throughout her journey. It resembeles a large golden-colored pocketwatch with three knobs on it's rim. It opens to reveal an ornate circle with 36 distinct symbols at it's edge with three large hands and one small hand which move around it. Each symbol has a series of meanings which, when held in one's mind may pose as a question or an answer. The big hands move to form your question with the knobs and the little hand moves to give the answer.
Very like a clock, or a compass, for there were hands pointing to places around the dial, but instead of the hours or the points of the compass there were several little pictures, each of them painted with the finest and slenderest sable brush.
- Extract from The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights)
The internal set of morals or the conscience that leads people to make good decisions. Often times this is a person in a group who's friendswill turn to for advice for he will never lead them astray.
Guy: what should we do with this extra food?
Guy 2: I don't know, let's ask Landon, he's the moral compass! He'll know exactly what to do.
βThe inner compass led Brendan to deflower his pet alpaca, much to the the disgust of his wifeβ.
βLarry, a balding and overweight failing real estate agent, made the bold decision to purchase a BMW convertible. Actually it wasnβt Larry, it was his mid life middle compassβ.