compress
/kəmˈpɹɛs/UK/ˈkɒmpɹɛs/
compress verb: to make smaller; to press or squeeze together, or to make something occupy a smaller space or volume.
Verb
compress (third-person singular simple present compresses, present participle compressing, simple past and past participle compressed)
- 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
- Antonyms:
- expand
- To be pressed together or folded by compression into a more economic, easier format.
- Our new model compresses easily, ideal for storage and travel
- Synonyms:
- contract
- Antonyms:
- decontract
- To condense into a more economic, easier format.
- This chart compresses the entire audit report into a few lines on a single diagram.
- To abridge.
- If you try to compress the entire book into a three-sentence summary, you will lose a lot of information.
- 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
- Synonyms:
- zip
- Antonyms:
- uncompress, decompress, unzip
- 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...
- Antonyms:
- stretch
- To embrace sexually.
- 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...
Noun
compress (plural compresses)
compress meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
compress in Tamil
- அடுக்குக்கட்டு, அமூக்கு, அழுத்து, நெருக்கு
compress in Marathi
- to press together into a smaller space
- दाबणे dābṇe, आकुंचन āṅkuċan
compress in Urdu
- چپٹا کرنا, دبانا
compress in Bengali
- সঙ্কুচিত করা
More languagesFewer languages
- compress in Malayalam
- ഞെക്കുക, ഞെരുക്കിവയ്ക്കുക, അമർത്തുക, ചുരുക്കുക
- compress in Kannada
- ಹದಗಿಸು, ಕುಗ್ಗಿಸು, ಕೈಗುಂದಿಸು, ಅಡಕಮಾಡು
- compress in Gujarati
- સંકુચિત કરવા માટે, સંકોચન કરવા માટે, સંકોચન કરવું
- compress in Odia
- ଚିପିବା cipibā
- compress in Assamese
- চমুউৱা somuua
- compress in Nepali
- कम्प्रेस गर्न
- compress in Indonesian
- kompres
- compress in Myanmar
- သိပ် sip
Examples of compress in a sentence
- That umpire often compresses the strike zone late in the game.
- To bind a compress upon a wound.
- Several reflected shocks enter the bomb core in rapid succession, each helping to compress it to its maximum density.
Synonyms of compress
25 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of compress
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | compresses |
| present participle | compressing |
| past participle | compressed |
| past | compressed |
| Noun | |
| plural | compresses |
Origin of compress
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”).
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”).
Words formed from compress
Words that rhyme with compress
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- SMS
- success
- largesse
- ness
- profess
- confess
- distress
- regress
- depress
- excess
- guess
- prepossess
- undress
- CBS
- ingress
- oppress
- redress
- transgress
- assess
- cess
- duress
- fess
- fluoresce
- Hesse
- less
- mayoress
- obsess
- tress
- unless
- yes
- accresce
- acquiesce
- aggress
- BESS
- caress
- clothes press
- congress
- defervesce
- digress
- ess
- foulness
- Hess
- intumesce
- jess
- lazy S
- liquesce
- repress
- second-guess
Questions about compress
- What does compress mean?
- Compress means to make smaller; to press or squeeze together, or to make something occupy a smaller space or volume.
- What is compress in Tamil?
- Compress in Tamil is அடுக்குக்கட்டு, அமூக்கு, அழுத்து. See Compress meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is compress?
- Compress can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce compress?
- Compress is pronounced /kəmˈpɹɛs/.
- What is the past tense of compress?
- The past tense of compress is compressed.
Words near compress in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: compress (page history and authors); compress (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); compress (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); compress (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); compress (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); compress (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); compress (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ଚିପିବା (Odia) (page history and authors); চমুউৱা (Assamese) (page history and authors); compress (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-compress-verb.ogg.
Cite this entry: “compress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/compress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.