compress
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Compress \Com*press"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Compressed}; p. pr &
vb. n. {Compressing}.] [L. compressus, p. p. of comprimere to
compress: com- + premere to press. See Press.]
1. To press or squeeze together; to force into a narrower
compass; to reduce the volume of by pressure; to compact;
to condense; as, to compress air or water.
[1913 Webster]
Events of centuries . . . compressed within the
compass of a single life. --D. Webster.
[1913 Webster]
The same strength of expression, though more
compressed, runs through his historical harangues.
--Melmoth.
[1913 Webster]
2. To embrace sexually. [Obs.] --Pope.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Computers) to reduce the space required for storage (of
binary data) by an algorithm which converts the data to a
smaller number of bits while preserving the information
content. The compressed data is usually decompressed to
recover the initial data format before subsequent use.
[PJC]
Syn: To crowd; squeeze; condense; reduce; abridge.
[1913 Webster]
from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
compress
vt.
[Unix] When used without a qualifier, generally refers to {crunch}ing
of a file using a particular C implementation of compression by Joseph
M. Orost et al.: and widely circulated via {Usenet}; use of {crunch}
itself in this sense is rare among Unix hackers. Specifically,
compress is built around the Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm as described
in "A Technique for High Performance Data Compression", Terry A.
Welch, IEEE Computer, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1984), pp. 8--19.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
compress
1. To feed data through any {compression} {algorithm}.
2. <tool> The {Unix} program "compress", now largely
supplanted by {gzip}.
Unix compress was written in {C} by Joseph M. Orost, James
A. Woods et al., and was widely circulated via {Usenet}. It
uses the {Lempel-Ziv Welch} {algorithm} and normally produces
files with the suffix ".Z".
Compress uses variable length codes. Initially, nine-bit
codes are output until they are all used. When this occurs,
ten-bit codes are used and so on, until an
implementation-dependent maximum is reached.
After every 10 {kilobytes} of input the compression ratio is
checked. If it is decreasing then the entire string table is
discarded and information is collected from scratch.
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
138 Moby Thesaurus words for "compress":
Ace bandage, Band-Aid, abbreviate, abridge, abstract,
adhesive tape, application, band, bandage, bandaging, bear, binder,
bob, boil down, brace, capsulize, cast, cataplasm, circumscribe,
clamp, clip, coarct, compact, concentrate, condense, congest,
consolidate, constrict, constringe, contract, cotton,
court plaster, cram, cramp, cravat, crop, crowd, crush, curtail,
cut, cut back, cut down, cut off short, cut short, damp, dampen,
decrease, deduct, deflate, densen, densify, depreciate, depress,
diminish, dock, downgrade, draw, draw in, draw together, dressing,
elastic bandage, elide, ensphere, epithem, epitomize, foreshorten,
four-tailed bandage, gauze, jam, knit, lessen, lint, lower, mow,
narrow, nip, pare, pinch, plaster, plaster cast, pledget, poll,
pollard, poultice, press, prune, pucker, pucker up, purse, push,
ram down, reap, recap, recapitulate, reduce, retrench, roll back,
roller, roller bandage, rubber bandage, scale down, shave, shear,
shorten, shrink, simplify, sling, snub, solidify, splint, sponge,
squab, squash, squeeze, squish, step down, strangle, strangulate,
stunt, stupe, sum up, summarize, synopsize, take from, take in,
tampon, tape, telescope, tent, tighten, tourniquet,
triangular bandage, trim, truncate, tune down, tweak, wad up,
wrinkle
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