compacted

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of compact.

   The crew compacted the gravel before laying the new path.

   Years of foot traffic had compacted the soil around the old oak.

   Note

   The past tense and the past participle share this spelling: the crew compacted the gravel; the soil had been compacted by traffic. It also serves the verb of agreements, so parties who compacted with one another made a pact rather than pressed anything together. Placed before a noun, it is usually the densely packed adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Packed closely or densely together, with little space between the parts.

   Lay the paving stones on a bed of compacted sand.

   Heavy machinery left the clay compacted and slow to drain.

   Similarcompressed, packed, dense, firm

   Oppositeloose

   Note

   The adjective carries its history with it: where compact describes something dense in itself, compacted implies that something pressed it that way, whether rollers, machinery or years of feet. It is everyday vocabulary in groundwork, where paths are laid on compacted hardcore or compacted hoggin, a mix of clay, gravel and sand. It compares with more and most.

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