Definition of "compress"

compress¹

/kəmˈpɹɛs/

verb
third-person singular simple present compresses, present participle compressing, simple past and past participle compressed
1. (transitive) To make smaller; to press or squeeze together, or to make something occupy a smaller space or volume.
  Quotations
  events of centuries […] compressed within the compass of a single life
  1825 June 17, Daniel Webster, Speech on the laying of the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument
  The same strength of expression, though more compressed, runs through his historical harangues.
  1810, William Melmoth, transl., Letters of Pliny
2. (intransitive) To be pressed together or folded by compression into a more economic, easier format.
3. (transitive) To condense into a more economic, easier format.
4. (transitive) To abridge.
5. (technology, transitive) To make digital information smaller by encoding it using fewer bits.
6. (obsolete) To embrace sexually.
  Quotations
  This nymph compreſs'd by him vvho rules the day, / VVhom Delphi and the Delian iſle obey, / Andræmon lov'd; and, bleſs'd in all thoſe charms / That pleas'd a God, ſucceeded to her arms.
  1717, Alexander Pope, “The Fable of Dryope. From the Ninth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], page 295

compress²

/ˈkɒmpɹɛs/

noun
plural compresses
1. A multiply folded piece of cloth, a pouch of ice etc., used to apply to a patient's skin, cover the dressing of wounds, and placed with the aid of a bandage to apply pressure on an injury.
2. A machine for compressing.