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Compress   Listen
verb
Compress  v. t.  (past & past part. compressed; pres. part. compressing)  
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. "Events of centuries... compressed within the compass of a single life." "The same strength of expression, though more compressed, runs through his historical harangues."
2.
To embrace sexually. (Obs.)
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.
Synonyms: To crowd; squeeze; condense; reduce; abridge.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Compress" Quotes from Famous Books



... artificial in man, and conceal nature in it. Take Homer and the tragedians; suffering nature speaks the language of truth and ingenuousness in their pages, and in a way to penetrate to the depths of our hearts. All the passions play their part freely, nor do the rules of propriety compress any feeling with the Greeks. The heroes are just as much under the influence of suffering as other men, and what makes them heroes is the very fact that they feel suffering strongly and deeply, without suffering overcoming them. They love life ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... were to adopt the Manchu dress, shaving the front part of the head and plaiting the back hair into a queue, but they were to be allowed burial in the costume of the Mings; (4) Chinese women were not to adopt the Manchu dress, nor to cease to compress their feet, ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... "delicate—delicate!" the adjective being pronounced with a haunting repetition of its most melodious letter. Years of more or less familiarity with the English language had not been able to efface his racial penchant for the labial. One might naturally suppose that to compress a native alphabet of some one hundred and twenty-six letters into one of twenty-six would result in much confusion and some inexplicable preferences, but no one has ever been able to point out why the functions ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... New England tended to compress population into small areas and to force the energies of the people into trade. Ship-building was an early industry, and New England ships vied with the ships of Holland and England in visiting distant countries for commerce.[9] Manufacturing found early encouragement, and in 1639 a number ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... sections, you may now proceed to the consideration of the openings; before you do this, however, it is necessary to apprise you that without a great abridgment of the notation adopted in the foregoing game, it would be impossible to compress within the limits of this work one-third of the variations which are required to be given. The following abbreviations will therefore be used throughout the remainder of ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"

... himself in the mirror? What judge, peruked by day, could so contain his learned locks? What male with waxed moustachios, or with limpest beard, or chin new-reaped would put his ears in such a compress? You will recall how Mr. Pickwick snatched his off when he found the lady in the curl papers in his room. His round face showed red with shame against the dusky bed-curtains, like the sun peering ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... In China, it is the fashion to compress the feet of female infants, to prevent their growth; in consequence of which, the feet of all the females of China are distorted, and so small, that the individuals cannot ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... decided to have me educated in the Jesuits' school; and I had to bid farewell to good Domenica and to enter upon my school life. New occupations engrossed me; new acquaintances presented themselves; the dramatic portion of my life began to unfold itself. Here years compress themselves together. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... of this address of Philip, his mother appeared to be transfixed, and motionless as a statue; gradually her lips separated, and her eyes glared; she seemed to have lost the power of reply; she put her hand to her right side, as if to compress it, then both her hands, as if to relieve herself from excruciating torture: at last she sank, with her head forward, and the blood poured out of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... lips of the wound together with her neat, strong fingers. "See what I do," she said to Vizard. "You will have to do it, while I— Ah, the stool! Now lay her head on that; the other side, man. Now, sir, compress the wound as I did, vigorously. Hold the cork, you, till ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... hold of by the boy in the imperfect light, and had instantly bitten him in the wrist, on which the punctures of the fangs were plainly visible. A handkerchief was at once tied round the wounded limb, with a small pebble so placed as to compress the brachial artery inside the forearm, and with the iron ramrod from a carbine as a lever, we screwed this rough tourniquet up until the circulation was in great measure cut off. Luckily Dunmore had a pocket-knife with him, for the sheath-knives ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... and compress within them that pure love from thy own heart that will cause us to pray, "O God! enlarge our hearts." God would even pain our hearts with the fulness of his love until we find ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... for reviewing. In the creative mood of composition, or in weary relaxation, reviewing seems the most ungrateful of tasks. Nothing comes whole to a reviewer. Half of every book must elude him, and the other half he must compress into snappy phrases. I watch him working upon that corpus, which so lately was a thing of life and movement—my book— and see that he cannot lift it; that he must have some hand-hold to grip it by—my style or my supposed interest in the Socialist Party, or the fact that I am a professor ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... division, which is strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, has the same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression which spontaneously rises to the mind will often refuse to accommodate itself to such a form. It is necessary either to expand it into weakness, or to compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generally the choice of an able man, and was ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... red-lined and padded spine protectors. But it is seldom hot for long. A cloud passes across the sun and instantly everything is cooled. A wave of wind sweeps across the hill and cools the moist brow like a camphor compress. An instant later the sun is out again and the land lies swimming in the shimmer of heat waves. Distant hills swim on miragic lakes, and if we are in plains country the mirages appear upon ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... bath, bandage of emplastrum de minio put on tight, so as to compress the part. Cover the part with flannel. With oiled silk. Rub it with common oil frequently. With ether. A blister. A warmer climate. Venesection. A grain of calomel and a grain of opium for ten successive ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... do see them," murmured Tom, as he pulled the lever which would pump the gas from the inflated bag, and compress it into tanks, until it was needed again to make the ship rise. Slowly the Black ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... which the lids drooped as if they were partially paralysed. Her fingers were yellow from peeling an orange, and her smart little hat was cocked on one side. There were grains of sand on her black gown, and when she saw her mistress she at once began to compress her lips, and to assume the expression of obstinate patience characteristic of properly-brought-up servants who find themselves travelling far from ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... of gossip devoted to the family differences which had led to the separation of Mr. and Mrs. Fairbrother, I shall compress into a few lines. They had been married three years before in the city of Baltimore. He was a rich man then, but not the multimillionaire he is to-day. Plain-featured and without manner, lie was no mate for this sparkling ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... the opening, by which the blood is prevented from being lost, and the wound is closed. "So long," he says, "as things are thus arranged, the whole artery will pulsate; but if you now throw a ligature about the vessel and tightly compress its wall over the tube, you will no longer see the artery beating beyond the ligature." I have never performed this experiment of Galen's nor do I think that it could very well be performed in the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... Hastily he knotted a compress bandage made of handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs around the bleeding head, and stretching Ashton flat on his back, began to pump his arms up and down as is done in resuscitating a drowned person. After a time Ashton's face began to lose its deathly pallor. His heart beat less feebly; he drew in ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... handkerchief or folded shirt wrapped about limb. If arm, put baseball in arm pit, and press arm against this. Or, for arm or leg, tie folded cloth in loose noose around limb, put cane or umbrella through noose and twist up the slack very tight, so as to compress the main artery ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... years of her life Gipsy had certainly managed to compress a greater variety of experiences than falls to the share of most girls of her age. She had been a traveller from her earliest babyhood, and was familiar with three continents. Her father was a mining engineer, and in the course of his profession was obliged to visit many out-of-the-way ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... willing, to fulfil all existing engagements and all existing duties, to uphold and defend the Constitution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which it does actually contain. But to coerce it into silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it,—should this be attempted, I know nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would not be endangered by the explosion ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... compact' | Es'cort escort' | Prot'est protest' Com'plot complot' | Es'say essay' | Reb'el rebel' Com'port comport' | Ex'ile exile' | Rec'ord record' Com'pound compound' | Ex'port export' | Ref'use refuse' Com'press compress' | Ex'tract extract' | Re'tail retail' Con'cert concert' | Fer'ment ferment' | Sub'ject subject' Con'crete concrete' | Fore'cast forecast' | Su'pine supine' Con'duct conduct' | Fore'taste foretaste'| Sur'vey survey' Con fine confine' | Fre'quent frequent' ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... Jim Scroggles on that particular afternoon found himself in the crow's-nest at the masthead, roaring "Thar she blows!" with a degree of energy so appalling that one was almost tempted to believe that that long-legged individual had made up his mind to compress his life into one grand but brief minute, and totally exhaust his powers of soul and body in the reiterated vociferation of that one faculty of the sperm-whale. Allowance must be made for Jim, seeing that this was ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... difference between the English and American methods of cataloguing books for sale at auction. In England the charges are inclusive, the cost of printing, postage, etc., being assumed by the auctioneer, so that he finds it to his interest to compress catalogue descriptions into the narrowest possible compass, to minimize the distribution of the catalogue, and to spend as small an amount of money in advertising as possible. In America, the charges are exclusive, the commission representing the auctioneer's only interest, and ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... hand to support the compress. Stormont went back to the shore, recovered her rifle from the shallow water, and returned ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... bales at the compress. I put up the compress receipts for the debts," said Bob to Imogene. "There is $3,123 against your cotton. I could not borrow another dollar ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... advanced, and, with whatever materials could be obtained upon the spot, made a sort of bandage and compress by the dim light, and applied it dexterously enough, while Caroline lay with her head upon her husband's bosom, and ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... their guide, he led them from place to place, so that they could see the huge serpentine gorge in which the river ran after its fall, rushing wildly between two grand walls of rock, its rage becoming the more furious from its being a mighty broad river above the falls, and then having to compress itself into a gorge not a thirteenth part of its ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... towels, which are not wrung out very thoroughly, are put on the abdomen, and tucked down a little on both sides. The woollen cloth is thereupon fastened so as to keep the compresses in place, the arrangement being otherwise exactly as before. In such cases the back compress only needs to be changed every 2 to 3 hours, even in case of severe fever. The front towels may be changed several times in ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... sometimes official brokers?' Now, Regina, 'M. Graindorge,' who makes this proposal to the Parisian world, has lived long in America, and doubtless received his inspiration in the United States. Hearts? We modern belles compress our hearts, as the Chinese do their feet, until they become numb and dwarfed; and some even roast theirs before the fires of Moloch until they resemble human pate de foie gras. There are a great many valuable truths taught us in the ancient myths, and for rugged ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... letter from him dated at London. "When I succeed," he said, "I will come back to you. I have given up politics and taken to literature. Literature is the only career in which my brain can reach its full development: all others compress and constrain me. I shall seek in the Old World for the recognition which the New did not yield me." All this was Greek to his mother and her sons, but they knew that it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... of 1737 the curtain was finally rung down on all the 'noise and hurry,' the achievements and audacities of Fielding's "little stage"; a few months later, and the country retirement at Stour had also become but a memory of that short life into which he managed to compress "more variety of Scenes than many People who live ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... said, 'my brother and I look forward to a time of leisure and retirement, when we will recast that lengthy romance, and compress it into narrower limits. We know full well it bears the stamp of inexperience, and there is much concerning Philoclea that we shall expunge. But that time of retirement!' Lady Pembroke said, 'it seems a mockery ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect: How, if one-tenth we must resign, Can we exist on t'other nine?" The monarch asked them in reply: "Has it occurred to you to try The advantage of economy?" "It has," the spokesman said: "we sold All of our gray garrotes of gold; With plated-ware we now compress The necks of those whom we assess. Plain iron forceps we employ To mitigate the miser's joy Who hoards, with greed that never tires, That which your Majesty requires." Deep lines of thought were seen to plow Their way ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... prescribed limits of conventional diction. To these transgressions I make willing confession. I have striven to present these sketches in the most lucid and concise form compatible with readableness; to compress the greatest possible amount of useful information into the smallest compass. Indeed, had I been competent, I doubt that I would have attempted a more elaborate rendition, or drawn more freely upon the language and the coloring of poetry and the imagination. I have ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that caused Richard to compress ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... you must compress. It is the shutting in of the steam that moves the engine. The amount of powder on a flat surface that sends a ball to its destination when shut up in a gun only makes a flash. If you want to carry the electric current you must be insulated. Stand a man on a glass platform and turn a battery ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... back the borrowed money, and gritted my teeth, and started to cram by myself. There were three months yet before the university entrance examinations. Without laboratories, without coaching, sitting in my bedroom, I proceeded to compress that two years' work into three months and to keep reviewed on the previous ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... woman of forty-eight, of an ample though still beautiful figure. Her flowing dress of white brocade made no attempt to compress, to sustain or to attenuate. No one could say that a woman who stood as she did, with the port of a goddess—the small head majestically poised over such shoulders and such a breast—was getting fat; yet no one could deny that there was redundancy. She was not ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... I am sorry. I compress you!' He glanced round in perplexity, seeking some escape or remedy. Finding none, he turned to her again, after having squeezed hard against his lady to ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... strives to compress into the space of about two hours and a half a great number of different acts which run the gamut of the entertainment forms, and therefore it cannot afford more than an average of twenty minutes to each. This time limit makes it difficult for a playlet to present effectively any story that does ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... usual style of the period, but lacks the brilliancy, the audacity, and the satire of that of Lucan. From certain allusions it is probable that the poem was written soon after the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus [6] (A.D. 70). There is considerable learning shown, but a desire to compress allusions into a small space and to suggest trains of mythological recollection by passing hints, interfere with the lucidity of the style. In other respects the diction is classical and elegant, and both rhythm and language are closely modelled on those ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... blankly, and as the minutes of silence between them lengthened Norma noticed his lips compress themselves into a thin, colourless line. But she returned his look bravely, and in her eyes there was something that told the man she was determined ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... an extraordinary thing that the people in this country, many of them coming from the most vigorous ancestry, should be willing to compress all their athletic enthusiasm into a very small period of their school and college life, and then to forget to take any exercise (except vicariously) until warned, sometime after forty, that Nature will exact a price for such folly. It is certainly a puzzle to understand how men can ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp

... so full in habit (comparatively speaking) is the body of the lima that the valves cannot compress it. Except at the hinges they are for ever divorced, an unfair proportion of the bulging body being exposed naked to the inclemency and hostility of the world. "All too full in the bud" for those frail unpuritanical stays, the animal seems to be at a palpable ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... without distinction. I am keenly interested in all that happens there, and in the welfare of each individual clerk and student. To hear a good report of any gives me sincere pleasure. I am glad on that account to give you this audience, albeit I am always pressed for time in which to compress each day's work." ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... still after them. But we don't pretend to accomplish miracles. This city is made up of mere human beings, and human beings still have the failing of breaking out, morally, now in one place, now in another. We can compress and segregate those infectious blots, but until you can show us the open sore we can't put on the salve. If you are convinced you are the object of some criminal activity, and are willing to hold nothing back, I can detail two ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... this process of expropriation would have been less rapid. As it was, the associated monopolies, the international and national banking interests, and the income classes in general, constricted the volume of money into as narrow a compress as possible. As they were the very class which controlled the law- making power of Government, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... Compress it as you may, this globe of ours remains quite a bulky affair. The world in little is not reducible to a microscopic point. The nations collected to show their riches, crude and wrought, bring with them also their wants. For the display, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... foundations of the engines are continuous, but are quite independent of the building. There are three compressing cylinders in each set of engines, one being above each steam cylinder. Two of these are employed to compress the air to about 30 lb. per square inch, after which it passes into a receiver and is cooled; it is then admitted into the third or final compressing cylinder and raised to the working pressure at which it flows into the mains. In the illustrations, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... down on my inertron belt, but I was already too high for this. The air was too rarefied to permit breathing outside, though my little air compressors were automatically maintaining the proper density within the shell. If I could compress a sufficiently large quantity of air inside the craft, I would add to its weight. But there seemed little chance that I would myself be able ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan

... case of bistouries from a drawer, and placed it with a roll of bandage and a compress of lint in his pocket. He must waste no more time if he were to ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... dwelt at such length on the physiological and medical arguments in defence of the vegetable system, that I must compress my remaining views into the smallest space possible; especially those which relate to its political, national, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... collect his thoughts. But he was surprised to find Jane still there, sitting bolt upright in a chair in the corner. Apparently she had been expecting him, for as he entered she stood up, and wiped her cheek and mouth with one hand, as if to compress her lips the ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the edge, glancing perhaps at its fellow, in some cases only a few yards away, and looking so exactly the counterpart of that on the near side that it seemed as if only another convulsion of nature was needed to compress and join the crack again so that it would be possible to walk ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... scant in this midwinter season; all events seem to compress into a small record, yet a little reflection shows that this is not the case. For instance I have had at least three important discussions on weather and ice conditions to-day, concerning which many notes might be made, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... came—a luminous April day of showers and warm wind—he was as good as his word. Molly, shining with pride in him (herself wearing the day's "uncertain glory"), saw him fold his arms in face of the pompous line of men his seniors, compress his mouth, shake his cropped head. The deputation was much taken aback, the crowd drove hither and thither; she saw head turned to head, guessed at wounds which certainly any one there was incapable of feeling. She, however, felt them, rose up ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... air, the impending cloud, Compress'd together by impetuous winds, Must presently discharge themselves in rain; Already as of crystal are the streams, And, for the fine grass late that clothed the vales, Is nothing now but the hoar ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... a man who affects to doubt everything he hears, I never hesitate about writing him down an ass. A great doubter is a solemn and self-conceited prig. How amusing is it to see the blockhead shake his empty pate, compress his lips into a sneer, and turn up his absurd unmeaning eyes in dubious disbelief, when he hears aught which he thinks it would imply sagacity to discredit! Such persons imagine, that to be a great doubter implies wisdom; whereas, in their case, it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... be remarked that the subject of the Khasi monoliths is in reality a large one, on which a great deal could be written, but owing to considerations of space it has been found necessary to compress the account ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... you interrupt in that way I shall lose the thread of my narrative. It is at your desire I recount to you the story of my past life; and how much wiser would you be if I were to compress it into a sentence like this for instance: 'Lord William came to our house in the autumn, and left us the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... in small masses, assume the spherical form; their parts possess freedom of motion; they differ in density and tenacity, in colour, and in opacity. They are usually regarded as incompressible; at least, a very great mechanical force is required to compress them. ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... be unacceptable to our readers that we should take this opportunity of presenting them with a slight sketch of the life of the greatest king that has, in modern times, succeeded by right of birth to a throne. It may, we fear, be impossible to compress so long and eventful a story within the limits which we must prescribe to ourselves. Should we be compelled to break off, we may perhaps, when the continuation of this work appears, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... corn-flowers blooming and luxuriant. One thing there is alone, that doth deform thee; In the midst of thee, O field, so fair and verdant! A clump of bushes stands—a clump of hazels, Upon their very top there sits an eagle, And upon the bushes' top—upon the hazels, Compress'd within his claw he holds a raven, And its hot blood he sprinkles on the dry ground; And beneath the bushes' clump—beneath the hazels, Lies void of life the good and gallant stripling; All wounded, pierc'd and mangled is his body. As the little tiny swallow ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow

... all, or any of these attacks, he hoped not only to wipe off the impression made by his losses, and by his retreat, but also to relieve Philadelphia from immediate danger, and to compel his adversary to compress himself in such a manner as no longer ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... ain't!" he gasped—and then his sentences came tumbling out upon each other jerkily, as though he were trying to compress what he had to say into as few words as possible and as quickly as he could, while he watched Madison warily. "I ain't throwing nothing. I just want to quit myself. I keeps my mouth shut—see? I don't want none of the share what's coming. Say, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... about him! our poor friend!... Monsieur Mouche, be kind enough to open a window! It seems to me that a compress of arnica would do ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... by drone and dolt, And, with caught breath and flashing eye, Her knuckles whitening round the bolt, Vengeance leans eager from the sky,— While this and that the people guess, And to the skirts of praters cling, Who court the crowd they should compress,— I turn in scorn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... as close as dried dates in a basket by the irresistible forward press of the people, found themselves suddenly occupationless, without power to move their arms, or ply their hands. Thus held in a mighty compress, temporary prisoners with their spoils in their pockets, and cheap jewelry shining enticingly all about them, they were obliged for the time to comport themselves like honest citizens. But, although their bodies were in durance vile, their eyes could roam covetously ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... had scarcely reached the end of the hedge when I saw Old Toombs himself, moving toward me down the country road. Though I had never seen him before, I was at no loss to identify him. The first and vital impression he gave me, if I can compress it into a single word, was, I think, force—force. He came stubbing down the country road with a brown hickory stick in his hand which at every step he set vigorously into the soft earth. Though not tall, he gave the impression of being enormously strong. He was thick, solid, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... straight, and his weight is brought from his shoulders by bringing his body and shoulders forward. This weight is gradually increased until at the end of the three seconds of vertical pressure upon the lower ribs of the patient the force is felt to be heavy enough to compress the parts; then the weight is suddenly removed. If there is danger of not returning the hands to the right position again, they can remain lightly in place; but it is usually better to remove the hands entirely. If the operator is light and the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... new echo in his heart was born, And sometimes mid the weary task, and leer Of felon faces, ere he was aware From a compress'd unmurmuring lip, it broke, O Lamb of God! If still unquell'd Despair Thrust up a rebel standard, down it fell At the o'er-powering sigh, O Lamb of God! And ere upon his pallet low, he sank, It sometimes breathed, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... a compress. That will take down the swelling,' replied the vicar, who was a little ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... two great avalanches which descend every spring; one of them when I was there last was not quite gone until September; these avalanches push the air before them and compress it, so that a terrific wind descends to the bottom of the valley and mounts up on to the village of Mesocco. One year this wind snapped a whole grove of full-grown walnuts across the middle of their trunks, and carried stones and bits of wood up against ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... obey without thinking, I am afraid I shall never be perfect in it! I do not know how people manage to compress themselves ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... every economical advantage that can be wished. No moist or black vapours; no ashes, no breaze, to make a dirt, or oppose the communication of heat; no useless loss of caloric; you may, by shutting an opening, which is no longer necessary for placing the wood in your oven, compress and coerce the torrents of heat that ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... happened to you, that have been so kind to us this many a day." Yet suffering of some sort was plainly stamped on the face and in the manner of this relieving angel. When they poured out their vulgar woes, Susan made an effort to forget her own and to cheer as well as relieve them. But she had to compress her own heart hard to do it; and this suppression of feeling makes people more or less bitter. She had better have out with it, and scolded them well for talking as if they alone were unhappy; but her woman's nature would not let her. They kept asking her for pity, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the Master's manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would or not; no further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the brow to compress its expense into a stern fold: it was now permitted to suffer the outward revelation of the inward glow—to seek, demand, elicit an answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass on Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... hands on her temples, and pressed them tightly, as if striving to compress her brain and bring it within ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... argues, surely we are not to believe that the particles of air expand to fill all the space when the bulk of air as a whole expands under the influence of heat; nor can we conceive that the particles of normal air are in actual contact, else we should not be able to compress the air. Hence his conclusion, which, as we have seen, he makes general in its application to all matter, that there are spaces, or, as he calls them, vacua, between the particles that go to make up all substances, whether liquid, solid, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... thing, to see some great philanthropist come forward, at the call of Duty and his Publisher (perhaps also quickened by the hollow sound emitted by his treasure-box), and compress himself into the absurdly small compass of a few pages 18mo., in order to afford himself the exalted pleasure of holding simple and godly ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various

... my predecessor thought,' replied Lorenzo. 'This morning Bernard Palissy told me that metals were the result of compression, and that fire, which divides all, also unites all; fire has the power to compress as well as to separate. That man has genius.' Though I was placed where it was impossible for them to see me, Cosmo said, lifting the hand of the dead girl: 'Some one is near us! Who is it' 'The king,' she answered. I at once showed myself and rapped ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... well. For poetry, though as a rule he disguised the fact, he had a strong distaste; once, when aged about twenty, he startled his father by observing that "In Memoriam" seemed to him a shocking instance of wasted energy; he would undertake to compress the whole significance of each section, with its laborious rhymings, into two or three lines of good clear prose. Naturally the young man had undergone no sentimental troubles; he had not yet talked of marrying, and cared only for the society of mature women who took common-sense ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... jail ain't a bad thing for a harum-scarum kid," Tom volunteered, as he finished giving his supper order. "It's a cold compress—takes down ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... farther side of the mountain range. For here the air is sinking. As it sinks it is being compressed. And as it is compressed it is heated. If you hold your finger over the mouth of a bicycle pump and compress the air in the pump by pushing down on the handle, you will find that the pump is decidedly warmed. When the air, sinking down on the farther side of the mountain range, is heated, the water vapor in it is not at all likely to condense. Therefore rain seldom falls on the side of the mountains ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... Peter's heart region. Then he rolled him over and started to compress his lungs. Long white streaks marked the puffy red of the swollen, dropsical flesh. The doctor examined the length of the body, and looked straight into George ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... at the disposal of the Government and three at the disposal of private members; leaving in all forty-four days for the Government and sixty-six for private members. Into those forty-four nights Government must compress all its yearly programme of legislation for the whole of the British Empire, from the settlement of some petty dispute about land in the Hebrides, to some question of high policy in Egypt, India, or other portions of ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... marvellous organization and organic movements of my body. But, surely, it would be strange language to say, that I construct my heart! or that I propel the finer influences through my nerves! or that I compress my brain, and draw the curtains of sleep round my own eyes! Spinoza and Behmen were, on different systems, both Pantheists; and among the ancients there were philosophers, teachers of the EN KAI PAN, who not only taught that God was All, but ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... will be to compress the subjects—so multitudinous are they—within the thousand feet allowed by the architect. To begin with the Wittenagemot, or meeting of the wise men, and to end with portraits of Mr. Roebuck's ancestors—to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various

... and the true America in 1861; the divided North with which Lincoln had to deal, the divided England where our many friends could do little to check our influential enemies, until Lincoln came out plainly against slavery. I have had to compress much, but I have omitted nothing material, of which I am aware. The facts would embarrass those who determine to assert that England was our undivided enemy during our Civil War, if facts ever embarrassed a complex. Those afflicted with ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... recede from the head. the horn for about two thirds of it's length is filled with a porus bone which is united with the frontal bone. I obtained the bones of the upper part of the head of this animal at the big bone lick. the horns of the female are small, but are also compress bent backwards and incircled with a succession of wavy rings. the horn is of a light brown colour; when dressed it is almost white extreemly transparent and very elastic. this horn is used by the natives in constructing their bows; ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... forceful Titan's warm embrace compress'd, The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd: The hundred-handed giant at a birth, And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth; My heart avow'd my sire's ethereal flame; Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... with a fine long staple grows wild in quantities wherever there is open ground, but it is not cultivated by the natives; and when attempts have been made to get them to collect it they do so, but bring it in very dirty, and the traders having no machinery to compress it like that used in America, it does not pay to ship. Indigo is common everywhere along the Coast and used by the natives for dyeing, as is also a teazle, which gives a very fine permanent maroon; and besides these ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... is an error on the one side, to make too great a disproportion betwixt the imaginary time of the Play, and the real time of its representation: so, on the other side, 'tis an oversight to compress the Accidents of a Play into a narrower compass than that in which ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... possible, the jack is operated to separate the diaphragms K and C, and as the partition K is pressed against one end of the mass of concrete which has been laid, the opposite end of which abuts against the end of the trench, it follows that any backward movement of the diaphragm K will compress the concrete. This movement will be practically inappreciable in distance, but enough to compact thoroughly the concrete and fill any voids. The action of the jack will also push forward the diaphragm C and the outer mold A, the latter being withdrawn from beneath ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... to obviate the use of the valve, he had placed inside the balloon a smaller globe, filled with ordinary air. This was done on the supposition that, when the balloon rose high, the hydrogen being rarefied would compress the little globe within, and press out of it a quantity of ordinary air equal to the amount of ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... in reference to the conditions of health. Yet more are they who sin in this respect against light, than in the absence of it. Is it not known that the exposure of the feet to wet and cold, in shoes genteelly thin, may induce disease? Can it be, that the multitudes, who compress the lungs and chest into half the space designed for them by nature, and thus occasion diseases of the spine, if not even consumption, sin all in ignorance? A slender waist was not regarded in ancient Greece as an attribute of female beauty; in Paris it is now usually deemed a deformity. When ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... facilities and to the resources of the surrounding country, which produces timber, lime, cotton, Indian corn, sugar-cane, wheat, oats, fruit, melons, hay and vegetables. Albany ships much cotton, and has a cotton compress, a cotton mill, cotton-seed oil and guano factories, brick yards, lumber mills and ice factories. It is a summer and winter resort and is the home of the Georgia Chautauqua. The city owns and operates the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... possible to compress a good deal of discomfort into six hours: and the Dak Bungalow, in its noonday quiet and comparative coolness, seemed an Island of the Blest after the glare and riot of the road. Here the Desmonds were cheered by ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... felt as though seven pounds of crushed ice had been neatly applied in the form of a compress to my ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... this variation appears even among the members of any one group. In the same family are two brothers, both farmers, both tenants. One is able to farm a thousand acres more successfully than the other can cultivate two hundred. The one is instant in judgment, swift in action, able to compress into an hour heavy physical labor and also the control of many other men. The other is leisurely, indolent in movement, though a diligent man, and is as much burdened by increase of responsibilities as the former is stimulated. These two men are not exceptional, but typical. The extreme ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... to enumerate and compress in the space usually allotted to an opinion of a court, the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... how much thought will compress itself into a minute. It was so here, these ideas repeating themselves again and again before the young man's feet touched something soft and yielding, and upon his stretching his legs wide he felt ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... present a close structural resemblance to the normal tissues of the body. They grow slowly, and are usually definitely circumscribed by a fibrous capsule, from which they are easily enucleated, and they do not tend to recur after removal. In their growth they merely push aside and compress adjacent parts, and they present no tendency to ulcerate and bleed unless the overlying skin or mucous membrane is injured. Although usually solitary, some are multiple from the outset—for example, fatty, fibrous, and bony tumours, warts, and fibroid tumours of the uterus. They produce ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... watch startled him. Though his combat experience had taught him how time could compress and stretch, the fact that only seven minutes ago he had been considering supper in his office came as ...
— Take the Reason Prisoner • John Joseph McGuire

... defense of their private interests than of those of the country. Thus electors are well assured beforehand that the Representative of their choice will be an orator; that he will speak often if he can, and that in case he is forced to refrain, he will strive at any rate to compress into his less frequent orations an inquiry into all the great questions of state, combined with a statement of all the petty grievances they have themselves to complain to; so that, though he be not able to come forward frequently, he should on each occasion prove what he is capable ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... Compress'd, alas! the thorax, That throbbed with joy or pain; Not e'en a dose of borax Could make it throb again. Dried up the warrior's throat is, All shatter'd too, his head: Still is the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... precious to be thrown away. I spent too many nights nursing him through every infantile disease—measles, whooping-cough,—you know yourself, my dear Clara,—beside the times that he broke his arm and his leg; though I still think that the cold compress is the best for a delicate constitution, and I actually ordered the doctor out ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... a novel and really tell about those characters all I knew and guessed? But again a consideration that has nothing to do with artistic form, settled the matter. I saw no earthly possibility of getting time enough to write a novel. So I left Mr. Purdon out, and began to think of ways to compress my material, to make one detail do double work so that space might ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... childbirth they suspend by the hair in order to stop the flow; and, after parturition, they compress the abdomen, and press down with great force on both thighs at once, in order to make the organs return to their former position; and they perform other things of like nature, which we consider as injurious and nonsensical. But they hold one of their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... specific gravity is increased, it becomes less inflammable, emits vapor more readily, and yields less readily to the blow of the axe. Place the same billet under a powerful screw, and a vessel beneath. Compress the billet, and by a sufficient application of force, you will have the wood, perfectly dry, left beneath the screw, and the vessel will contain water. Thus is it shown that land (all vegetable matter being no more than fungi of the earth) is a. primary ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... became An independent creature, self-employd, Yet but an agent in one common work, The slim of all their individual labours. Shap'less they seem'd, but endless shape assumed; Elongated like worms, they writhed and shrunk Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions; Compress'd like wedges, radiated like stars, Branching like sea-weed, whirl'd in dazzling rings; Subtle and variable as flickering flames, Sight could not trace their evanescent changes, Nor comprehend their motions, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various

... wide-brimmed gray hat and no collar or waistcoat; he was inspiring; he had just come home—had landed that very day! Our meeting caused an eddy in the current of humanity. Hurried people would run against us, then walk round us, and turn back to look at that giant. We tried to compress seven years of life into seven exclamations; then, suddenly appeased, walked sedately along, giving one another the news of yesterday. Jackson gazed about him, like a man who looks for landmarks, then stopped before Bland's ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... to compress the spirits of youth within the dignity of a minuet, and thought of the childish romp of former years. Not so my lady. Long afterwards I saw her lead a ball with the first soldier and gentleman of the land, but on that Tuesday she carried herself full ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... The compression caused by drawing the cart over the manure, has a tendency to exclude the air and thus retard fermentation. In the winter there is certainly no necessity for resorting to any means for checking fermentation. In the spring or summer it may be well to compress the heap a little, but not more, I think, than can be done by the trampling of the workman in spreading the manure on ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... once Planted his footstep—the spray Boils o'er its borders! aloft The unseen snow-beds dislodge Their hanging ruin!—alas, Havoc is made in our train! Friends, who set forth at our side, Falter, are lost in the storm. We, we only are left!— With frowning foreheads, with lips Sternly compress'd, we strain on On—and at nightfall at last Come to the end of our way, To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks; Where the gaunt and taciturn host Stands on the threshold, the wind Shaking his thin white hairs— Holds his lantern to scan Our storm-beat figures, and asks: ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... to imagine always exists, whether or not it has a solid basis on which to rest and materials with which to build; but when it does not elaborate from reality and truth, instead of raising a divine structure it forms incrustations which compress the intelligence and prevent ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... a shape and dimensions different from the customary—the last constituting a particularly clever artifice which, under the guise of convenience in handling, would necessitate the installation of entirely new gin and compress machinery, to be supplied, of course, by ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... almost all night we got the shelter-house fairly furnished, although we made a trail through the snow that looked like a fever chart. Toward daylight Mr. Sam dropped a wash-bowl on my toe and I went to bed with an arnica compress. ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... also seen how improper dress may compress the organs about these parts, and thus interfere with the circulation. Again, it is easily understood, simply from studying the illustrations alone, how any of these causes might produce dislocation of ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... dispelled the popular error that Gibbon's style is swollen and declamatory; for he alleged that every effort at condensation had proved a failure, and that at the end of his labors the page he had attempted to compress had always expanded to the eye, when relieved of the weighty and stringent fetters in which the gigantic genius of Gibbon had ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell

... and none of the innocence. For the last twenty years she's been looking after me like a nurse, cette pauvre auntie, as Lise so charmingly calls her.... And now, after twenty years, the child clamours to be married, sending letter after letter, while her head's in a vinegar-compress and... now he's got it—on Sunday I shall be a married man, that's no joke.... And why did I keep insisting myself, what did I write those letters for? Oh, I forgot. Lise idolizes Darya Pavlovna, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... was over and the rain was still coming down, they would run away to their dolls, who, poor things, were always ill, so that Florence might have the pleasure of curing them. And though before Cap's accident she had never heard of a compress, she could make nice food for them at the nursery fire, and bandage their broken arms and legs while Parthy held the wounded ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... in the Egyptian desert, with an ancient history, no doubt, and a mystery perhaps, but without response to any appeal. And for this very reason it is an index, not to that which is transient in the man, but to that which is permanent. He may knit his brows to seem thoughtful and profound, or compress his lips to persuade his friends and himself that he has a strong will, but he can play no trick with his nose. There it stands, an incorruptible witness, testifying to what he is, and not only to what he is, but to the rock whence ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... the long and complex story of her personal relationships, so we must compress the intimately related history of her works and her ideas. When under the inspiration of Rousseau, the emancipated George Sand began to write, her purposes were but vaguely defined. She conceived of life as primarily an opportunity for unlimited self-expansion, and ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... like a pair of scissors, still remain a menace to the tyrant; they might at least, by gripping the surrounding grasses, oppose a more or less effectual resistance to the process of carrying off." So the preceding manoeuvres are consummated by a kind of garrotting; that is, the insect "takes care to compress the brain of its victim, but so as to avoid wounding it; producing only a stupor, a simple torpor, a passing lethargy." Is not the ingenious observer justified in concluding that "this is ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... appearance, that a horse-hair, "laid," as Hollinshed says, "in a pail of water," will become the supporter of seemingly one worm, though probably of an immense number of small slimy water-lice. The hair will twirl round a finger, and sensibly compress it. It is a common experiment with school boys ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... spikes running worthless up into the air. But I seized the goblet, poured into it what was left in the bottom, and carried it in to Morton as quietly as I could. He bade me give Lycidas as much as he could swallow; then showed me how to substitute my thumb for his, and compress the great artery. When he was satisfied that he could trust me, he began his work again, silently; just speaking what must be said to that brave Mary, who seemed to have three hands because he needed them. When all was secure, he glanced at the ghastly ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale



Words linked to "Compress" :   prim, compression, convulse, compressible, force, contract, bear down, medical dressing, wedge, strangle, tighten, decompress, astringe, compact, tamp down



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