compact

Etymology 1

From Latin compactum (“agreement”).

noun

1. An agreement or contract.
   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. 2021-04-29, Peter Baker, “Biden Seeks Shift in How the Nation Serves Its People”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   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. 2022-01-25, David Yaffe-Bellany, “The Rise of the Crypto Mayors”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

verb

1. (intransitive) To form an agreement or contract.
   In return for the sovereign's protection, they compacted to police the content of public literature. 2004, Ronan Deazley, On the Origin of the Right to Copy, page 94

Etymology 2

From Middle French [Term?], from Latin compāctus, perfect passive participle of compingō (“join together”), from com- (“together”) + pangō (“fasten”), from Proto-Indo-European *pag- (“to fasten”).

adj

1. Closely packed, i.e. packing much in a small space.
2. Having all necessary features fitting neatly into a small space.
   a compact laptop computer
3. (topology, not comparable, of a set in a topological space) Such that every open cover of the given set has a finite subcover. In a Euclidean space this is equivalent to a Closed and bounded set.
   A set S of real numbers is called compact if every sequence in S has a subsequence that converges to an element again contained in S.
4. Brief; close; pithy; not diffuse; not verbose.
   a compact discourse
5. (obsolete) Joined or held together; leagued; confederated.
   a pipe of seven reeds, compact with wax together 1622, Henry Peacham (Junior), The Compleat Gentleman
6. (obsolete) Composed or made; with of.

noun

1. A small, slim folding case, often featuring a mirror, powder and a powderpuff; that fits into a woman's purse or handbag, or that slips into one's pocket.
2. An automobile that is larger than a subcompact but smaller than an intermediate.
3. 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. 2012, BBC News, Dundee Courier makes move to compact

verb

1. (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. 24 August 2014, 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)
2. To unite or connect firmly, as in a system.