Etymology From Middle English compressen, from Old French compresser, from Late Latin compressare (“to press hard/together”), from Latin compressus, the past participle of comprimō (“to compress”), itself from com- (“together”) + premō (“press”).
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.
events of centuries […] compressed within the compass of a single life1825 June 17, Daniel Webster, Speech on the laying of the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument:
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The same strength of expression, though more compressed, runs through his historical harangues.1810, William Melmoth, transl., Letters of Pliny:
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To be pressed together or folded by compression into a more economic, easier format.
Our new model compresses easily, ideal for storage and travel
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To condense into a more economic, easier format.
This chart compresses the entire audit report into a few lines on a single diagram.
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To abridge.
If you try to compress the entire book into a three-sentence summary, you will lose a lot of information.
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To make digital information smaller by encoding it using fewer bits.
The command-line tool gzip allows you to compress files in a few different ways. First, gzip can compress results from standard input.2015, Vince Buffalo, Bioinformatics Data Skills […] , O'Reilly, →ISBN:
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Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics To make a pulse or particle bunch shorter by applying dispersion to it.
Diffraction gratings are by far the most common elements used to stretch and compress pulses because of their substantial angular dispersion, […]2019, B. Webb et al., “Simulation of grating compressor misalignment tolerances and mitigation strategies for chirped-pulse–amplification systems of varying bandwidths and beam sizes”, in Applied Optics, volume 58, number 2, pages 234-243:
This nymph compreſs'd by him vvho rules the day, / VVhom Delphi and the Delian iſle obey, / Andræmon lov'd; and, bleſs'd in all thoſe charms / That pleas'd a God, ſucceeded to her arms.1717, Alexander Pope, “The Fable of Dryope. From the Ninth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], →OCLC, page 295:
Etymology From Middle French compresse, from compresse (“to compress”), from Late Latin compressare (“to press hard/together”), from Latin compressus, the past participle of comprimō (“to compress”), itself from com- (“together”) + premō (“press”).
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Medicine, Sciences 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.