[1] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

compress \com"press\, n. f. compresse. surg.
   a folded piece of cloth, pledget of lint, etc., used to cover
   the dressing of wounds, and so placed as, by the aid of a
   bandage, to make due pressure on any part.
   1913 webster

[2] : The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

compress \compress"\, v. t. imp.  p. p. compressed; p. pr 
   vb. n. compressing. l. compressus, p. p. of comprimere to
   compress: com- + premere to press. see press.
   1. 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.
      1913 webster

            events of centuries . . . compressed within the
            compass of a single life.             --d. webster.
      1913 webster

            the same strength of expression, though more
            compressed, runs through his historical harangues.
                                                  --melmoth.
      1913 webster

   2. to embrace sexually. obs. --pope.
      1913 webster

   3. 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.
      pjc

   syn: to crowd; squeeze; condense; reduce; abridge.
        1913 webster
see also:
compressed compressing 

[3] : WordNet (r) 2.0

compress
     n : a cloth pad or dressing with or without medication applied
         firmly to some part of the body to relieve discomfort or
         reduce fever
     v 1: make more compact by or as if by pressing; "compress the
          data" syn: compact, pack together ant: decompress
     2: squeeze or press together; "she compressed her lips"; "the
        spasm contracted the muscle" syn: constrict, squeeze,
         compact, contract, press
see also:
compact pack together decompress constrict squeeze contract 
press 

[4] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

138 moby thesaurus words for "compress":
   ace bandage, band-aid, abbreviate, abridge, abstract,
   adhesive tape, application, band, bandage, bandaging, bear, binder,
   bob, boil down, brace, capsulize, cast, cataplasm, circumscribe,
   clamp, clip, coarct, compact, concentrate, condense, congest,
   consolidate, constrict, constringe, contract, cotton,
   court plaster, cram, cramp, cravat, crop, crowd, crush, curtail,
   cut, cut back, cut down, cut off short, cut short, damp, dampen,
   decrease, deduct, deflate, densen, densify, depreciate, depress,
   diminish, dock, downgrade, draw, draw in, draw together, dressing,
   elastic bandage, elide, ensphere, epithem, epitomize, foreshorten,
   four-tailed bandage, gauze, jam, knit, lessen, lint, lower, mow,
   narrow, nip, pare, pinch, plaster, plaster cast, pledget, poll,
   pollard, poultice, press, prune, pucker, pucker up, purse, push,
   ram down, reap, recap, recapitulate, reduce, retrench, roll back,
   roller, roller bandage, rubber bandage, scale down, shave, shear,
   shorten, shrink, simplify, sling, snub, solidify, splint, sponge,
   squab, squash, squeeze, squish, step down, strangle, strangulate,
   stunt, stupe, sum up, summarize, synopsize, take from, take in,
   tampon, tape, telescope, tent, tighten, tourniquet,
   triangular bandage, trim, truncate, tune down, tweak, wad up,
   wrinkle

[5] : Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)

compress unix vt. when used without a qualifier, generally refers to
   crunching of a file using a particular c implementation of compression
   by joseph m. orost et al. and widely circulated via usenet; use of
   crunch itself in this sense is rare among unix hackers. specifically,
   compress is built around the lempel-ziv-welch algorithm as described in
   "a technique for high performance data compression", terry a. welch,
   "ieee computer", vol. 17, no. 6 june 1984, pp. 8-19.


see also:
crunch usenet 

[6] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

compress
     
        1. to feed data through any compression algorithm.
     
        2.  the unix program "compress", now largely
        supplanted by gzip.
     
        unix compress was written in c by joseph m. orost, james
        a. woods et al., and was widely circulated via usenet.  it
        uses the lempel-ziv welch algorithm and normally produces
        files with the suffix ".z".
     
        compress uses variable length codes.  initially, nine-bit
        codes are output until they are all used.  when this occurs,
        ten-bit codes are used and so on, until an
        implementation-dependent maximum is reached.
     
        after every 10 kilobytes of input the compression ratio is
        checked.  if it is decreasing then the entire string table is
        discarded and information is collected from scratch.
     
     
see also:
compression algorithm unix gzip c usenet 
lempel-ziv welch kilobytes 

Compress >> C Words
Compress, definition of term: Compress
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