COMPRESSED • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Compressed

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kəmprˈɛst/ Listen

verb

Compress v. t. (past & past part. compressed; pres. part. compressing)

To press or squeeze together; to force into a narrower compass; to reduce the volume of by pressure; to compact; to condense; as, to compress air or water. "Events of centuries... compressed within the compass of a single life." "The same strength of expression, though more compressed, runs through his historical harangues."

To embrace sexually. (Obs.)

(Computers) To reduce the space required for storage (of binary data) by an algorithm which converts the data to a smaller number of bits while preserving the information content. The compressed data is usually decompressed to recover the initial data format before subsequent use.

Synonyms: To crowd; squeeze; condense; reduce; abridge.

adjective

Compressed adj.

Pressed together; compacted; reduced in volume by pressure.

(Bot.) Flattened lengthwise.

Compressed-air engine, an engine operated by the elastic force of compressed air.

See images of 'Compressed'

Etymology of 'Compressed'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Compressed" Quotes from Famous Books

... Alice softly, as, with a final lurch, and a blowing up of her decks, from the compressed air under them, the old craft, bow first went beneath the waves. Russ took the ...

— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... inquiries. He devoted twenty-seven years to the composition of his narration, and he weighed his testimony with the most scrupulous care. His style has not the fascination of Herodotus, but it is more concise. In a single volume he relates what could scarcely be compressed into eight volumes of a modern history. As a work of art, of its kind, it is unrivaled. In his description of the plague of Athens he is minute as he is simple. He abounds with rich moral reflections, and has a ...

— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... 15 he took Meares and one dog-team, and started for Hut Point, which was fifteen statute miles to the south of us. They crossed Glacier Tongue, finding upon it a depot of compressed fodder and maize which had been left by Shackleton. The open water to the west ...

— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... others and give place perhaps to the deepest channel of the river. where it enters the Missouri it's superior force changes and directs the courant of that river against it's northern bank where it is compressed within a channel less than one third of the width it had just before occupyed. it dose not furnish the missouri with it's colouring matter as has been asserted by some, but it throws into it immence quantities of sand and gives a celerity to it's courant of which ...

— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... shock of his changed aspect—held her motionless also. He looked older, more sallow; his sensitive mouth compressed; no lurking gleam in his eyes. He seemed actually less good-looking than she remembered; ...

— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

More quotes...