Compress

6 definitions found

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

  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]



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

  Compress \Com*press"\, 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]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  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}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  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
  
  

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

  compress [Unix] vt. When used without a qualifier, generally refers to
     {crunch}ing 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.
  
  

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

  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.