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”).

• IPA^(key): /kəmˈpɹɛs/, enPR: kəmprĕs'

• Audio (US); “compress” (verb):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛs

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.

   Synonyms: compact, condense, pack, press, squash, squeeze; see also Thesaurus:compress

   Antonym: expand

   The force required to compress a spring varies linearly with the displacement.

   • 1825 June 17, Daniel Webster, Speech on the laying of the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument:

     events of centuries […] compressed within the compass of a single life

   • 1810, William Melmoth, transl., Letters of Pliny:

     The same strength of expression, though more compressed, runs through his historical harangues.

2. (intransitive) To be pressed together or folded by compression into a more economic, easier format.

   Synonym: contract

   Antonym: decontract

   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.

   Synonyms: abridge, condense, shorten, truncate; see also Thesaurus:shorten

   Antonyms: expand, lengthen

   If you try to compress the entire book into a three-sentence summary, you will lose a lot of information.

5. (computing, transitive) To make digital information smaller by encoding it using fewer bits.

   Antonym: uncompress

   • 2015, Vince Buffalo, Bioinformatics Data Skills […] , O'Reilly, →ISBN:

     The command-line tool gzip allows you to compress files in a few different ways. First, gzip can compress results from standard input.

6. (obsolete) To embrace sexually.
   • 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:

     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.

• compression

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”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒmpɹɛs/
• (US) enPR: kŏm'prĕs, IPA^(key): /ˈkɑmpɹɛs/

• Audio (US); “compress” (noun):

  (file)

compress (plural compresses)

2. (medicine) 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.

3. A machine for compressing.

• compression