''compact'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260831172210-00-⌔

compact - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

compact (plural compacts)

• An agreement or contract.
  • ✤ Synonyms: agreement, contract, pact, treaty
  • ✤ President Biden laid out an ambitious agenda on Wednesday night to rewrite the American social compact by vastly expanding family leave, child care, health care, preschool and college education for millions of people to be financed with increased taxes on the wealthiest earners.¹
  • ✤ After taking over this month as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan coalition of city mayors, he urged members to sign a “crypto compact” calling on the federal government to eschew overly aggressive regulation of the industry.²
  • ✤ Countering this in international media by offering more balanced views for a global audience is near impossible as censorship is rife. There almost seems to be a global compact to control the narrative, a propaganda war powered by today’s digital technology.³

Verb

compact (third-person singular simple present compacts, present participle compacting, simple past and past participle compacted)

• (intransitive) To form an agreement or contract.
  • ✤ In return for the sovereign’s protection, they compacted to police the content of public literature.⁴

Adjective

compact (not comparable)

• (archaic) Agreed, contracted.
  • ✤ O Gorice XI., most glorious King of Witchland, and O Lord Goldry Bluszco, captain of the hosts of Demonland, it is compact betwixt you, and made fast by mighty oaths whereof I, the Red Foliot, am keeper, that ye shall wrastle three falls together on these conditions, […]⁵

Adjective

compact (comparativemore compact or compacter, superlativemost compact or compactest)

• Closely packed or densely constituted; having much material in a small volume.
  • ✤ Synonyms: concentrated, crowded, dense, serried; see also Thesaurus: compact
  • ✤ Hyponym: ultracompact
  • ✤ glass, crystal, gems, and other compact bodies⁶
• Having all necessary features fitting neatly into a small space.
  • ✤ a compact laptop computer
• (of prose) Brief and pithy; not verbose.
  • ✤ a compact discourse
• (topology, not comparable) Of a topological space:
  • Such that every open cover has a finite subcover. In a metric space, this is equivalent to being sequentially compact. In metric spaces with the Heine-Borel property, this is equivalent to being closed and bounded.
    • ✤ Synonym: quasi-compact
  • Compact in the above sense and moreover Hausdorff.
• (obsolete) Joined or held together; leagued; confederated.
  • ✤ Thou fooliſh Frier, and thou pernicious woman/Compact with her that’s gone:⁷
  • ✤ a pipe of seven reeds, compact with wax together⁸
• (obsolete) Composed or made; with of.
  • ✤ A wandering fire,/Compact of unctuous vapor.⁹

Noun

🖼️ ➺

compact (plural compacts)

• A slim folding case, often featuring a mirror, powder and a powder puff, small enough to fit in a woman’s purse, handbag, or pocket.
  • ✤ Synonym: powder box
• An automobile that is larger than a subcompact but smaller than an intermediate.
• A broadsheet newspaper published in the size of a tabloid but keeping its non- sensational style.
  • ✤ The Dundee Courier has announced the newspaper will be relaunching as a compact later this week. Editor Richard Neville said a “brighter, bolder” paper would appear from Saturday, shrunk from broadsheet to tabloid size.¹⁰

Verb

compact (third-person singular simple present compacts, present participle compacting, simple past and past participle compacted)

• (transitive) To make more dense; to compress.
  • ✤ You need to excavate and remove the topsoil, line the subsoil with a geotextile, then lay and compact hardcore.¹¹
• To unite or connect firmly, as in a system.
  • ✤ The whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth.¹²

Pronunciation

• Noun:
  • (UK) IPA: /ˈkɒmˌpækt/
  • (US) IPA: /ˈkɑmˌpækt/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• Adjective:
  • (UK) IPA: /kəmˈpækt/
  • (US) IPA: /kəmˈpækt/, /ˈkɑmˌpækt/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• Verb:
  • (US, UK) IPA: /kəmˈpækt/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• Rhymes: (adjective, verb) -ækt

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin compactum (“agreement”).

Etymology 2

From Middle French compact, from Latin compāctus, perfect passive participle of compingō (“join together”), from com- (“together”) + pangō (“fasten”), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡peh₂ǵ- (“to attach, fix, fasten”).

Printed 2026-08-31.

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Footnotes

1. 2021 April 29, Peter Baker, “Biden Seeks Shift in How the Nation Serves Its People”, in The New York Times ‎${}^{[1]}$, →ISSN: ↩

2. 2022 January 25, David Yaffe-Bellany, “The Rise of the Crypto Mayors”, in The New York Times ‎${}^{[2]}$, →ISSN: ↩

3. 2023 February 21, Chandran Nair, “Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media”, in The Diplomat ‎${}^{[3]}$: ↩

4. 2004, Ronan Deazley, On the Origin of the Right to Copy, page 94: ↩

5. 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 20: ↩

6. 1704, I[saac] N[ewton], “”, in Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. […], London: […] Sam[uel] Smith, and Benj[amin] Walford, printers to the Royal Society, […], →OCLC: ↩

7. c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 81: ↩

8. 1622, Henry Peacham (Junior), The Compleat Gentleman: ↩

9. 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC: ↩

10. 2012, BBC News, Dundee Courier makes move to compact ‎${}^{[4]}$: ↩

11. 2014 August 24, Jeff Howell, “Home improvements: gravel paths and cutting heating bills [print version: Cold comfort in technology, 23 August 2014, p. P5]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Property) ‎${}^{[5]}$: ↩

12. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ephesians 4:16: ↩