compact
compact Lexical Profile
compact Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Designed or arranged to fit neatly into a small space; small and efficiently organized.
"The apartment features a compact kitchen with built-in appliances."
Closely and firmly united or packed together; dense in structure.
"The gardener had to break up the compact soil before planting the seeds."
Expressed briefly and without wasted words (of speech or writing).
"The historian wrote a compact summary of the nineteenth-century reforms."
• verb
To press or pack firmly together to form a dense, solid mass.
"Heavy machinery was used to compact the gravel before laying the asphalt."
• noun
A formal agreement, contract, or covenant between two or more parties, states, or sovereigns.
"The neighboring states signed a regional compact to manage shared water resources."
A small, flat case containing a mirror, face powder, and a powder puff, designed to be carried in a handbag.
"She opened her silver compact to check her reflection before entering the theater."
North American A small, fuel-efficient passenger automobile that is larger than a subcompact and smaller than a midsize car.
"Renting a compact made parking on the narrow downtown streets much easier."
Word Nuance & Usage
'Compact' is a heteronym whose stress shifts by part of speech and meaning: the noun (whether meaning a formal agreement or a cosmetic case) and the common adjective (meaning small and efficiently designed) are stressed on the first syllable (KOM-pakt), whereas the verb and formal predicative adjective uses are typically stressed on the second syllable (kuhm-PAKT).
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
This word represents two distinct Latin roots that converged in spelling: the sense of 'closely packed' and the verb 'to compress' come from Latin compactus, the past participle of compingere ('to fasten together'), while the noun meaning 'a formal agreement' derives from Latin compactum, from compacisci ('to make an agreement with').