compress
Plural: compresses
Noun
- a cloth pad or dressing (with or without medication) applied firmly to some part of the body (to relieve discomfort or reduce fever)
- 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.
- A machine for compressing.
Verb
Verb Forms: compressed, compressing, compresses
- To flatten or reduce in size by pressing.
- make more compact by or as if by pressing
- "compress the data"
- squeeze or press together
- "she compressed her lips"
- To make smaller; to press or squeeze together, or to make something occupy a smaller space or volume.
- To be pressed together or folded by compression into a more economic, easier format.
- To condense into a more economic, easier format.
- To abridge.
- To make digital information smaller by encoding it using fewer bits.
- To embrace sexually.
Examples
- He held a cold compress over the sprain.
- He tried to compress the possibilities on his rack, looking for the best word.
- If you try to compress the entire book into a three-sentence summary, you will lose a lot of information.
- Our new model compresses easily, ideal for storage and travel
- The force required to compress a spring varies linearly with the displacement.
- This chart compresses the entire audit report into a few lines on a single diagram.
Origin / 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”).
Synonyms
compact, constrict, contract, pack together, press, squeeze, abbreviate, abridge, astringe, chop down, chop off, compactify, compress, condense, curt, curtail, densitize, lop off, make shorter, mash, pack, pare, prune, reduce in length, saw off, scrunch, shorten, smush, squash, squish, squoosh, thring, thrutch, trim, truncate
Antonyms
decompress, decompact, decompactify, decontract, densen, expand, lengthen, uncompress
Scrabble Score: 14
compress: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordcompress: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
compress: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary