compress

American  

[kuhm-pres, kom-pres] / kəmˈprɛs, ˈkɒm prɛs /

verb (used with object)

• compresses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• compressed,
  past participle,  past
• compressing
  present participle

1. to press together; force into less space.

   Synonyms:

   constrict, squeeze, condense

   Antonyms:

   lay, expand

2. to cause to become a solid mass.

   to compress cotton into bales.

3. to condense, shorten, or abbreviate.

   The book was compressed by 50 pages.

4. Computers. to reduce the storage space required for (data) by changing its format.

   The algorithm should compress the video file without losing any quality.

---

noun

• compresses
  plural

1. Medicine/Medical. a soft, cloth pad held in place by a bandage and used to provide pressure or to supply moisture, cold, heat, or medication.

2. an apparatus for compressing cotton bales.

3. a warehouse for storing cotton bales before shipment.

compress British  

verb

1. (tr) to squeeze together or compact into less space; condense

2. computing to apply a compression program to (electronic data) so that it takes up less space

---

noun

1. a wet or dry cloth or gauze pad with or without medication, applied firmly to some part of the body to relieve discomfort, reduce fever, drain a wound, etc

2. a machine for packing material, esp cotton, under pressure

Synonym Usage

See contract.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• compressibleness
  noun
• overcompress
  verb (used with object)
• precompress
  verb (used with object)
• compressible
  adjective
• noncompressible
  adjective
• uncompressible
  adjective
• compressibly
  adverb
• compressingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• compresses
  plural

Participles

• compressing
  present
• compressed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• compress
  simple
• compresses
  simple
• have compressed
  perfect
• has compressed
  perfect
• am compressing
  progressive
• are compressing
  progressive
• is compressing
  progressive
• have been compressing
  perfect progressive
• has been compressing
  perfect progressive

Past

• compressed
  simple
• had compressed
  perfect
• was compressing
  progressive
• were compressing
  progressive
• had been compressing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will compress
  simple
• will have compressed
  perfect
• will be compressing
  progressive
• will have been compressing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of compress

1350–1400; (v.) Middle English (< Middle French compresser ) < Late Latin compressāre, frequentative of Latin comprimere to squeeze together ( see com-, press ¹); (noun) < Middle French compresse, noun derivative of the v.

Explanation

The noun compress refers to a pad that's held to your body to reduce pain or symptoms of illness. A washcloth dipped in cold water and pressed onto your forehead to help you cool down is a type of compress. As a verb, compress means to squeeze together with a fair amount of pressure. When you compress a sponge to get all the water out, you press it between your palms or squish it between your fingers. Compress can also mean to make something more compact — as with the sponge, when you compress an object it gets smaller. You could even compress a speech by cutting it down into a shorter but equally effective version.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

compress compresses compressed compressing

Watters wanted to compress El-Sayed into a caricature, a radical leftist Muslim candidate who could be made alien and threatening to the people watching at home.

From Salon ● Oct. 8, 2026

Why this is notable: Such a development could compress years of progress into months or less and outpace humans’ ability to understand it, the authors said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

“You have to learn how to take the big ideas and stories and compress that into a bite,” she said.

From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026

But the risk is that someone looking at a P/E ratio may not see as much downside risk as there actually is, he added, because profit margins “tend to compress sharply” during slowdowns.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026

Once the fighting had ended and the master had been served his meal, I took a cool compress and mug of cold ale up to Madam.

From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson

The collapsing capsule compresses fusion fuel to the extraordinary pressures and temperatures required for fusion reactions.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026

In “The Shift,” she compresses the challenge of an entire profession into a single 12-hour shift on a hospital cancer ward.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

"Tessera compresses loads of that data and gives us really easy-to-use maps of the UK, where we can ask really specific questions about things we can see from space."

From BBC ● May 18, 2026

Here, the Pacific Flyway compresses into a living mosaic of wings, water and soil.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2026

We can trace it clearly through Newton’s notebooks, even if he compresses it in his first publication.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Another source said the process "should" be resolved by the end of the season, and they hoped any appeal would be "compressed".

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

"And at that impact region, there must be very high temperature that melted and compressed the stone beneath it," he says.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026

Feulner was known more as an advocate than a scholar, and Heritage scholars generally wrote their own material, which I sometimes compressed to op-ed length.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

Valuations of tech stocks have compressed significantly in recent months.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026

When I nodded to her in greeting, she compressed her lips and looked at Ba.

From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu

This weather pattern results in air sinking downwards, compressing and heating up as it hits the ground.

From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2026

While the force between individual atoms is weak, it becomes remarkably strong across the large surface area of two dimensional materials, pulling the sheets together and compressing the water trapped between them.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 2, 2026

“Higher costs are eroding household purchasing power and compressing business margins, while heightened uncertainty is dampening business confidence and investment,” the UN said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026

They have rarely had to contend with those signals arriving in seconds, compressing the space between diplomatic gesture and market consequence to near zero.

From Barron's ● Apr. 18, 2026

There’s a hazy blur to my thoughts, a vise compressing my head.

From "Every Day" by David Levithan

Related Words

• abbreviate
• constrict
• cram
• restrict
• shorten
• shrink
• squeeze
• wrap