# compact

Pronunciation: say "kuhm-PAKT" /kəmˈpækt/

## Adjective

1. Having all the necessary features arranged neatly in a small space.
   - Simple: Small, but with everything you need fitted neatly inside.
   - _The hotel room was compact but still had a desk, a sofa bed, and a tiny kitchen._
   - _She bought a compact camera that slips easily into a jacket pocket._
2. Closely packed or dense, with a lot of material in a small volume.
   - Simple: Packed closely together, so a lot of material fills a small space.
   - _Clay soil is so compact that rainwater struggles to drain through it._
   - _The loaf had a compact, heavy crumb with almost no air holes._
7. Of prose, brief and full of meaning, with no wasted words.
   - Simple: Of writing, short and clear, without extra words.
   - _Her compact prose packs a great deal of feeling into a few short chapters._
   - _The summary is admirably compact, covering every main finding in a single page._
11. Of a topological space, having a finite subcover for every open cover; in a metric space, equivalent to being sequentially compact, and with the Heine-Borel property, to being closed and bounded.
   - Simple: In math, describes a space where every cover of open sets can be cut down to a limited number.
   - _The closed interval from 0 to 1 is compact, but the open interval is not._
   - _A closed subset of a compact space is itself compact._
12. Of a topological space, having a finite subcover for every open cover and also being Hausdorff, with any two distinct points separable by disjoint open sets.
   - Simple: In math, describes a space where open covers shrink to finite ones and any two points can be kept apart.
   - _Every compact space is normal, so Urysohn's lemma applies to it directly._
   - _The Zariski topology on a curve is quasi-compact but not compact, because it is not Hausdorff._

## Noun

Pronunciation: say "KOM-pakt" US /ˈkɑmˌpækt/, UK /ˈkɒmˌpækt/

3. A car larger than a subcompact but smaller than an intermediate model.
   - Simple: A small car, bigger than the smallest cars but smaller than medium-size ones.
   - _A compact is far easier to squeeze into a tight city parking space than a full-size SUV._
   - _The rental agency had run out of compacts, so they gave us a midsize sedan at the same price._
5. A thin folding case small enough for a woman's purse, handbag, or pocket, often holding a mirror, face powder, and a puff.
   - Simple: A small, flat folding case, often with a mirror and face powder inside, that fits in a purse or pocket.
   - _She snapped open her compact and dabbed powder on her nose before the meeting._
   - _Collectors pay high prices for antique enameled compacts with their original puffs._
6. An agreement or contract between two or more parties.
   - Simple: An agreement that two or more people or groups make with each other.
   - _The neighboring states signed a compact to share water from the river._
   - _Many voters felt the government had broken the social compact with working families._
8. A broadsheet newspaper printed at tabloid size that keeps its serious, non-sensational style.
   - Simple: A serious newspaper printed on small, tabloid-size pages, but not written in a shocking style.
   - _The paper dropped its broadsheet format last year and now appears as a compact._
   - _Commuters said the new compact was much easier to read on a crowded train._

## Verb

4. To press something together so that it becomes denser.
   - Simple: To press something down hard so it takes up less space.
   - _Roll the gravel several times to compact it before laying the paving stones._
   - _Heavy trucks compact the soil and make it harder for roots to grow._
9. To make an agreement or contract with others.
   - Simple: To make an agreement with another person or group.
   - _Rival companies that compact to fix prices are breaking the law._
   - _The two families compacted to divide the land equally between their heirs._
10. To unite or connect parts firmly into a single whole, as in a system.
   - Simple: To join parts together firmly so they work as one.
   - _The new constitution compacted a loose alliance of colonies into one federal union._
   - _Shared hardship can compact a group of strangers into a loyal crew._

## Adjective

13. Agreed upon or settled by contract. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Agreed on by two or more people.
   - _The marriage had been compact between the two families since the children were small._
   - _By the terms compact between them, each brother would farm half the valley._
14. Joined or held together; of people, leagued or allied with one another. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Held together firmly, or joined with others as allies.
15. Made up or composed of something; used with of. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Made up of certain things or parts.
   - _The village bread was compact of rye, barley, and whatever else the miller had._
   - _She was a woman compact of pride and kindness in equal parts._

## Origin

**Meanings 6, 9, 13** — From Latin compactum ("agreement").
**Meanings 1–5, 7–8, 10–12, 14–15** — From Middle French compact, from Latin compāctus, the perfect passive participle of compingō ("join together"), from com- ("together") + pangō ("fasten"), from Proto-Indo-European *pag- ("to fasten").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/compact (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).