compendium

American  

[kuhm-pen-dee-uhm] / kəmˈpɛn di əm /

Also compend

noun

• compendiums,
  plural
• compendia
  plural

1. a brief treatment or account of a subject, especially an extensive subject; concise treatise.

   a compendium of medicine.

   Synonyms:

   conspectus, digest, survey

2. a summary, epitome, or abridgment.

3. a full list or inventory.

   a compendium of their complaints.

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compendium British  

/ kəmˈpɛndɪəm /

noun

1. a book containing a collection of useful hints

2. a selection, esp of different games or other objects in one container

3. a concise but comprehensive summary of a larger work

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• compendia
  plural
• compendiums
  plural

Etymology

Origin of compendium

1575–85; < Latin: gain, saving, shortcut, abridgment, equivalent to com- com- + pend- (stem of pendere to cause to hang down, weigh) + -ium -ium

Explanation

When you search an online encyclopedia, you are searching a compendium of information on just about everything. A compendium is a comprehensive collection of something. You can also use the word compendium to describe a collection of written works. If you gather all of the anecdotes your parents and grandparents have told you into a book, you'll have created a compendium of family stories. The plural of compendium is either compendiums or compendia.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

compendium compendia compendiums

About 65,000 people were in ICE detention as of 30 November 2025, according to data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse's immigration project, a compendium of government data from Syracuse University.

From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2026

Edward Brooke-Hitching supplies all sorts of tidbits to beguile readers ages 7-9 in this entertaining compendium.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025

The release of “Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run” is accompanied by a new compendium of standout tracks by McCartney and Wings.

From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2025

Those writings, discovered in her New York City apartment after she died in her Alabama hometown nine years ago, have been gathered into the welcome hybrid compendium “The Land of Sweet Forever.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2025

Beilstein is the massive German compendium in 28 volumes, listing all the organic molecules known to chemists.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

The sequel is tentatively titled “Filthy Healthy Cravings”: a compromise, perhaps, between recent salad-centric compendia and the permissive indulgence of Chrissy Teigen’s cookbooks.

From New York Times ● Sep. 5, 2018

“Legal compendia are among the foundational reference works in every civilization.”

From Washington Post ● Feb. 17, 2016

They should have, he argues, and to demonstrate that he is perfectly serious, Fussell goes through the Handbook, with meticulous care before concluding that it is a "compendia of good sense".

From The Guardian ● May 24, 2012

Thank Naxos Records for its compendia of Barber’s orchestral music and of Schuman’s symphonies, both timed to coincide with the centenaries.

From New York Times ● Jul. 30, 2011

Before the nineteenth century, one may find illustrations of bloodletting instruments in the major textbooks on surgery, in encyclopedias such as that of Diderot, and in compendia of surgical instruments written by surgeons.

From Bloodletting Instruments in the National Museum of History and Technology by Toby Appel

That’s because the company’s giant color compendiums originate at least in part from ornithology and natural history.

From National Geographic ● Dec. 7, 2023

In front of a bookcase, her familiar blond bob is crowned with two multivolume catalogues raisonnés — scholarly compendiums of two other favorite artists, Edward Ruscha and John Baldessari.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 10, 2022

Indeed, American cookbook authors focusing on non-Eurocentric recipes no longer have to be compendiums that represent the cuisine of their heritage as a whole; instead they can have diasporic nuances.

From Salon ● May 26, 2022

Heidecker and Wood released two albums together, knowing compendiums of ’70s songwriter pastiche.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2020

How can the larger historical works, biographies, and compendiums of history be used in the high school?

From A Guide to Methods and Observation in History Studies in High School Observation by Calvin Olin Davis