compress

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See also kompres

Contents

English [edit]

Etymology 1 [edit]

From Middle French compressen, from Late Latin compressare 'to press hard/together', from compressus, the past participle of comprimere 'to compress', itself from com- 'together' + premere 'to press'

Pronunciation [edit]

Verb [edit]

compress (third-person singular simple present compresses, present participle compressing, simple past and past participle compressed)

  1. (transitive) To make smaller; to press or squeeze together, or to make something occupy a smaller space or volume.
    The force required to compress a spring varies linearly with the displacement.
  2. (intransitive) To be pressed together or folded by compression into a more economic, easier format.
    Our new model compresses easily, ideal for storage and travel
  3. (transitive) To condense into a more economic, easier format.
    This chart compresses the entire audit report into a few lines on a single diagram.
  4. (transitive) To abridge.
    If you try to compress the entire book into a three-sentence summary, you will lose a lot of information.
  5. (technology) (transitive) To make digital information smaller by encoding it using fewer bits.
Synonyms [edit]
Antonyms [edit]
Derived terms [edit]
Related terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
to press together into a smaller space
to be pressed together
to condense
to abridge — see abridge
to encode digital information into less bits
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Translations to be checked

Etymology 2 [edit]

From Middle French compresse, from compresser 'to compress', from Late Latin compressare 'to press hard/together', from compressus, the past participle of comprimere 'to compress', itself from com- 'together' + premere 'to press'

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

compress (plural compresses)

  1. A multiply folded piece of cloth, a pouch of ice etc., used to apply to a patient's skin, cover the dressing of wounds, and placed with the aid of a bandage to apply pressure on an injury.
    He held a cold compress over the sprain.
  2. A machine for compressing
Related terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
cloth used to dress or apply pressure to wounds
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