▪ I. compact, n.1
(ˈkɒmpækt)
[cf. OF. compact, It. compatto (Florio), ad. L. compact-um a compact, agreement, subst. use of pa. pple. of the vb. compacisci to covenant together, f. com- + pacisci to covenant, contract; see pact. Not immediately connected in Eng. or Latin with the following words, though pang-ĕre and pac-ĕre, pac-isci were related farther back. Originally accented on second syllable (so 6 times out of 7 in Shakes.), but noted in Phillips 1696 as accented on the first.]
1. A covenant or contract made between two or more persons or parties; a mutual agreement or understanding; ‘a mutual and settled appointment between two or more, to do or to forbear something’ (J.). It is used without a in phrases, as by, from, with compact; also to strike compact.
| 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, v. iv. 163 Therefore take this compact of a Truce. 1602 ― Ham. i. i. 86 By a Seal'd Compact, Well ratified by Law, and Heraldrie. 1597 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxii. §15 Christ's own compact solemnly made with his church. 1598 Hakluyt Voy. I. 270 (R.) Any compacts, treaties or leagues, by vs or any of our progenitours heretofore had or made. 1651 Hobbes Govt. & Soc. ii. §14. 27 No man..by his compact, obligeth himself to an impossibility. 1765 Blackstone Comm. I. 45 A compact is a promise proceeding from us, law is a command directed to us. 1836 Thirlwall Greece III. xxii. 212 To fulfil their part of the compact. 1866 Kingsley Herew. viii, He made a compact with the foul fiend. |
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. i. x. 41 An Art, which without compact commandeth the powers of hell. 1722 Wollaston Relig. Nat. vi. 135 A title to many things may be transferred by compact. 1750 Harris Hermes iii. i. (1786) 314 The Meaning..of Language is derived, not from Nature, but from Compact. 1850 Gladstone Glean. V. xxxiii. 193 Has such an attribute come to it by compact? |
b. family compact, social compact: see family, social. general compact: general accord, common consent.
| 1750 Johnson Rambler No. 77 ¶15 Having extinguished in themselves the distinction of right and wrong..they deserved to be hunted down by the general compact. 1793 Southey Nondescripts i, If we act the governor, and break The social compact. 1808 J. Barlow Columb. ii. 195 Human souls, for social compact given. 1842 H. Rogers Introd. Burke's Wks. 81 Unless there has been an actual violation of the existing social compact..a revolution is unjustifiable. 1848 G. Barmby in The Apostle No. i. 8 The 4th claim for private property is the presumed formation of a social compact or convention of society, authorizing private possessional claim. |
† c. In a bad sense: Confederacy, plot, conspiracy. Obs.
| 1590 Shakes. Com. Err. ii. ii. 163 What is the course and drift of your compact? 1652 C. B. Stapylton Herodian xi. 87 Albinus Friends he chargeth with Compact. |
▪ II. compact, n.2
[subst. use of compact ppl. a.1]
† a. A compacted body, structure. † b. A combination, composition. † c. Conformation, build. † d. Compact state, compaction. (All Obs.).
| 1601 Cornwallyes Ess. xvii, This compact of the Elements must suffer a dissolution. 1644 Milton Educ. Wks. (1847) 100/1 Having..passed the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and geography, with a general compact of Physics, they may descend in Mathematics. 1646 Buck Rich. III, 148 He was of a mean or low compact, but without disproportion and unevenness. 1817 Keatinge Trav. I. 161 Their remarkably sedentary habits admitted of this close compact of society. |
e. A small case for compressed face-powder, rouge, etc.
| 1921 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 13 Oct. 7/3 (Advt.), Luxor Compacts in three shades. 1927 D. L. Sayers Unnatural Death vi. 69 A latch-key and a powder compacte. 1929 Punch Almanack 1930 4 Nov. opp. p. xxvii (Advt.), Give her lavender this Christmas. Compact—2/-, With rouge—3/6. 1968 J. Ironside Fashion Alphabet 169 The introduction of several new articles into the jewellery trade, such as compacts, lipstick cases, etc. |
f. (See next, B. 1 c.)
▪ III. compact, ppl. a.1
(kəmˈpækt, ˈkɒmpækt)
[ad. L. compactus, pa. pple. of comping-ĕre to put together closely, f. com- + pang-ĕre (root pag-) to make fast, fasten. Littré has the corresponding F. compacte of 16th c.]
A. pa. pple. Obs. or arch.
1. a. Compacted, knit, firmly put together.
| 1430 Lydg. Chron. Troy i. v, So well..compact by measure. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 221 In whome all the body is compact and knyt by euery ioynt. 1530 Palsgr. 490/2 This nagge is well compacte: ce courtoult est bien troussé. 1578 Banister Hist. Man i. 30 So excellently compact, and wrought together with Ligamentes. 1636 Blunt Voy. Levant 108 A farre greater Empire..and better compact. 1685 Baxter Paraphr. N.T. 2 Cor. xiii. 11 Be compact together in holy Union. |
b. Packed closely together.
| 1655 W. F. Meteors ii. 21 When..vapors are gathered together..being very neere compact, and as it were hard tempered together. 1704 Swift T. Tub, Introd., If the audience be well compact, every one carries home a share. |
2. Made up by combination of parts; framed, composed of.
| 1531 Elyot Gov. i. xxii, Honour to god..is compacte of these thre thinges, feare, loue, and reuerence. 1547 Boorde Brev. Health §182 Man..is compacke and made of xv substances. 1551 T. Wilson Logike 6 Man himselfe is compact of bodie and minde. 1586 Cogan Haven Health cxciv. (1636) 176 Milke..is compact or made of three severall substances. 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. ii. vii. 5 If he compact of iarres, grow Musicall. 1667 Milton P.L. ix. 635 A wandring Fire Compact of unctuous vapor. 1704 Swift Operat. Spirit Wks. 1768 I. 223 The style compact of insignificant words, incoherences, and repetitions. 1850 Mrs. Browning Poems II. 221 Napoleon..that great word, Compact of human breath in hate and dread And exultation. 1883 Stevenson Silverado Sq. (1886) 5 Towns compact, in about equal proportions, of..wooden houses and great..trees. |
B. adj.
1. Closely packed or knit together. a. Having the component particles closely and firmly combined; dense, solid, firm; esp. of the texture or composition of material substances.
compact tissue: the dense ivory-like outer layer of a bone (Syd. Soc. Lex.). compact fracture (of minerals): see quot. 1816. compact structure (of rocks): see quot. 1885.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. xliv. (1495) 567 Yren is drye and colde and full harde and compacte. 1555 Fardle Facions i. ii. 29 The matier more compacte. 1567 J. Maplet Gr. Forest 10 Amongst al Mettals there is none more solide more compact then this is. 1626 Bacon Sylva §299 Exercise..maketh the Substance of the Body more Solid and Compact. 1708 Brit. Apollo No. 2. 2/1 Tho' Hail be a more compact congealation than Snow. 1759 Robertson Hist. Scot. I. ii. 93 A body so firm and compact as the Scots, easily resisted the impression of the cavalry. 1816 R. Jameson Char. Min. (1817) 234 The internal surfaces..produced by splitting it are..continuous, when the fracture is said to be compact. 1831 R. Knox Cloquet's Anat. 11 The compact tissue [of bones]. 1854 Ronalds & Richardson Chem. Technol. I. 25 A very dense blackish-brown compact peat. 1885 A. Geikie Text-bk. Geol. ii. ii. §4 (ed. 2) 96 Cryptoclastic or compact, where the grains are too minute to reveal to the naked eye the truly fragmental character of the rock. |
b. Having the parts so arranged that the whole lies within relatively small compass, without straggling portions or members; nearly and tightly packed or arranged; not sprawling, scattered, or diffuse. So compact order or compact arrangement.
In Entom. applied to organs or bodies in which the parts are closely connected together, without incisions.
| 1642 Milton Apol. Smect. (1851) 268 How hazardous..it were in skirmish to change the compact order. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 351 Paris is compact; she has an enormous strength..and this strength is collected and condensed within a narrow compass. 1794 Mrs. Radcliffe Myst. Udolpho xxviii, Conducted from them [enemies] in the compactest order. 1824 Stuart Steam-Eng. 164 Trevithick's Engine is the most compact. 1845 Florist's Jrnl. 109 Beautifully neat and compact plants. 1866 Rogers Agric. & Prices I. xxvii. 651 The estate of the manor was generally compact..The lands of the small proprietors were, however, generally very scattered. Mod. Strap these overcoats and rugs into one compact parcel. Compact lobelias for bedding, and the straggling sort for window-boxes. |
c. spec. Designating a light car having a short wheelbase. Hence as n.
| 1960 Economist 13 Feb. 620/2 The compact cars, which are smarter, cheaper and more economical to run than the standard-sized ones. 1960 News Chron. 10 Oct. 6/3 Americans are discovering that cars can be too big, so their idea of a ‘compact’ has a transatlantic twist. 1966 ‘E. Lathen’ Murder makes Wheels go Round i. 5 The Plantagenet was fast becoming America's leading prestige car. No compact was selling better than the Drake. |
d. compact disc (or compact disk), a disc on which sound or data is recorded digitally as a spiral pattern of pits and bumps underneath a smooth transparent protective layer and reproduced by detecting the reflections of a laser beam focused on the spiral.
| 1979 Materials Engin. Sept. 34/1 As the laser moves toward the outer edge, the Compact Disc slows down from 500 to 215 rpm. 1981 New Scientist 5 Nov. 374 Philips invented the Compact Disc system, which produces an hour of digital sound from a grooveless 12-cm disc when a laser ‘reads’ it. But the company pooled its patents on laser disc technology with Sony in October 1979. In June 1980, Sony and Philips announced full cooperation on the Compact Disc for digital audio. 1983 N.Y. Times 18 Mar. d1 Many see the compact disk as a potentially enormous growth area for the languishing consumer audio-electronics industry. 1984 Sounds 29 Dec. 3/1 Compact discs are selling four times as many as they were a year ago. 1985 Which Computer? Apr. 127/3 Sony and Philips, for example, are exploring the compact disc as a medium for storing programs. 1986 Bookseller 12 Dec. 2326/2 The new trial..consists of a compact disc carrying about 300 biomedical journals. |
2. transf. and fig. a.
| 1677 Hale Prim. Orig. Man. iv. viii. 374 The Humane Nature..hath a more fixed, strong, and compact memory of things past than the Brutes have. 1845 S. Austin Ranke's Hist. Ref. II. 397 The first formation of a compact evangelical party. 1847 Emerson Repr. Men, Napoleon Wks. (Bohn) I. 369 A man..compact, instant, selfish, prudent. 1863 J. Brown Horæ Subs. (ed. 3) 5, I got my fixed compact idea of him. 1869 A. W. Haddan Apost. Success. viii. (1879) 235 The compacter organization, and more determined party effort. 1878 Morley Carlyle Crit. Misc. Ser. 1. 192 Detached passages cannot counterbalance the effect of a whole, compact body of teaching. Mod. A compact majority. |
b. Of language or style: Condensed, terse, pithy, close; not diffuse. Also said of the writer.
| 1576 Fleming Panop. Epist. 255 A methode in writing and speaking compact in brevitie. 1711 H. Felton Dissert. Classics (J.), Where a foreign tongue is elegant, expressive, close and compact. 1780 Cowper Table-t. 647 Pope..In verse well-disciplined, complete, compact. 1872 Morley Voltaire (1886) 139 The best of Voltaire's tragedies, abounding in a just vehemence, compact, full of feeling. |
c. Of sounds: (see quots.); spec. in Phonetics, open, saturated (opp. diffuse).
| 1930 E. R. Moul in Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. XLII. 559 There is a pre-spatial attribute of thickness in vision and audition... In both, certain types of experience are characterized as..‘hard’, ‘opaque’, ‘compact’. 1952 R. Jakobson et al. Prelim. Speech Analysis 27 Compact phonemes are characterized by the predominance of one centrally located formant region (or formant). They are opposed to diffuse phonemes in which one or more non-central formants or formant regions predominate. Ibid., Open vowels are the most compact, while close vowels are the most diffuse. 1956 L. G. Jones in M. Halle et al. For Roman Jakobson 251 Lax fricatives must be diffuse, tense fricatives compact. 1962 R. Jakobson Sel. Writings 638 Compact consonants are articulated in the velopalatal area of the mouth cavity, and diffuse consonants—dentals and labials—in front of this area. |
▸ Compact City n. (also with lower-case initial) Town Planning (orig. U.S.) an urban area with clearly defined boundaries, in which the residential and commercial districts are relatively close together, forestalling the development of rural land and reducing the need to commute by car.
| 1933 W. S. Thompson & P. K. Whelpton Population Trends in U.S. i. 40 Closely knit businesses of enormous size can now be made up of relatively small units,..so grouped that people need not live in the huge *compact cities of today. 1973 G. B. Dantzig & T. L. Saaty Compact City i. 11 The new, Compact City..would be economically inexpensive to build and maintain, yet spacious... In the Compact City..there would, of course, be no suburban sprawl, freeways, traffic, smog, or other forms of urban blight. 1995 Independent 20 Feb. 18 (headline) Looking forward to Compact City. |
▪ IV. † comˈpact, ppl. a.2
[ad. L. compact-us, pa. pple. of compacisci to covenant together, form a compact.]
Joined in compact, leagued.
| 1597 Daniel Civ. Wares i. xlviii, The cheefe of those you finde Were of his faction secretly compact. 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. v. i. 242 Thou pernicious woman Compact with her that's gone. |
▪ V. compact, v.1
(kəmˈpækt)
[f. compact a.; or, through it, f. compact- ppl. stem of L. compingĕre, of which it has thus become the representative. In the present stem, of later appearance than the pa. pple. compact, which continued a true pple. (as in ‘I have compact’) after 1600; occas. the pa. tense also was made compact.]
1. trans. To join or knit (things) firmly and tightly together, or to each other; to combine closely into a whole; to consolidate by close conjunction.
| 1530 Palsgr. 490/2, I compacte a thing shorte togyther to make it stronge, je trousse. 1579 Fulke Heskins' Parl. 478 [They] can not be the body of Christe, except both be ioyned and coupled and compacted together in one breade. 1582 N.T. (Rhem.) Coloss. ii. 19 The whole body by joyntes and bandes being served and compacted. 1666 J. Webb Stone-Heng (1725) 75 The Architraves were compacted to their Supporters by Tenons and Mortises. 1674 Flatman Poems, Orpheus & E. 19 My Layes compacted Thebes. 1709 Stanhope Paraphr. IV. 240 The Ligaments, that should compact and keep them [Limbs] in their Functions. 1768 Boswell Corsica Pref. 18 After he has arranged, compacted and polished. 1879 C. Rossetti Seek & F. 27 Those forces which..guide, compact, dissolve, the members of the material universe. |
b. To press or pack together (component atoms or parts); to compress, condense, solidify.
| 1633 G. Herbert Temple, Virtue iii, Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie. 1712 Blackmore Creation (J.), Now the bright sun compacts the precious stone. 1827 H. Steuart Planter's G. (1828) 293 To fill in mould firmly..and to compact it with the Rammer. 1875 Ure Dict. Arts III. 490 Causing the atmospheric pressure to operate in compacting the pulp into paper. |
c. transf. and fig. of non-material things and persons.
| 1613 Purchas Pilgr. ii. xii. 147 For ordering and compacting them in one volume. 1647 May Hist. Parl. ii. i. 4 Forty years of peace had compacted those two nations into one body. 1722 Wollaston Relig. Nat. 6 Adjusting and compacting loose sentiments. 1870 Pall Mall G. 23 Aug. 1 The military system completes and compacts what the national education has commenced. |
2. To form or frame by close and tight combination or conjunction; to make up or compose.
| 1570–6 Lambarde Peramb. Kent (1826) 205 He compacted of wood, wyer, paste and paper, a Roode of..exquisite arte. c 1580 Hours Blessed Virg. 99 W{supt}{suph} sinewes and w{supt}{suph} bones Thou hast compact me. 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. x. lix. (1612) 258 So modest, wittie, affable, had Nature her compact. c 1630 Risdon Surv. Devon (1714) I. 74 The Foundation of the Walls..compacted of Moor-stone and Lime. 1652 Benlowes Theoph. viii. vii, Who out of nothing all things did compact. 1879 E. W. Gosse in Academy 25 The light and shade that make biography amusing are compacted of partisanship and of malice. |
b. fig.; also with up.
| 1533 More Answ. Poisoned Bk. Wks. 1087/2 He..hath in lesse then thre lines, compacted vp together such three abomynable blasphemous heresies. 1612 T. Taylor Comm. Titus i. 11 Their whole religion is compacted, and contriued for gaine. |
† 3. fig. To confirm, give consistency to. Obs.
| 1605 Shakes. Lear i. iv. 362 Informe her full of my particular feare, And thereto adde such reasons of your owne, As may compact it more. |
▪ VI. † comˈpact, v.2 Obs.
[app. a. OF. compact-er ‘faire un pacte’, in med.L. compactāre, f. compactum compact n.1]
1. intr. To make a compact.
| 1535 J. ap Rice in Four C. Eng. Lett. 33 They had confedered and compacted before our commyng that they shulde disclose nothing. 1615 G. Sandys Trav. 225 (D.) Saturne..hauing so compacted with his brother Titan. 1652 Gaule Magastrom. 53 Compacting with the Devill. 1690 Locke Govt. i. i. §5 Slaves could never have a Right to compact or consent. |
2. trans. To plan by compact, conspire.
| 1667 Waterhouse Fire Lond. 47 If all the Engineers of mischief would have compacted the..Burning of London. |
¶ An intermediate sense between compact v.1 and v.2 = ‘To join or associate by compact’ appears in the following:
| 1592 Greene Art Conny-catch. iii. 17 Some notorious varlets..beeing compacted with such kind of people, as this present treatise manifesteth. 1606 G. W[oodcocke] tr. Hist. Ivstine 101 b, These harlots..compact themselues confederates with the most dissolute persons. |