compact: Meaning and Definition of

com•pact

1. joined or packed together; closely and firmly united; dense; solid: compact soil.
2. arranged within a relatively small space: a compact shopping center; a compact kitchen.
3. designed to be small in size and economical in operation.
4. solidly or firmly built: the compact body of a lightweight wrestler.
5. expressed concisely; pithy; terse; not diffuse: a compact review of the week's news.
6. composed or made (usually fol. by of&hasp;): a book compact of form and content.
7. (of a set) having the property that in any collection of open sets whose union contains the given set there exists a finite number of open sets whose union contains the given set; having the property that every open cover has a finite subcover.

1. to join or pack closely together; consolidate; condense.
2. to make firm or stable.
3. to form or make by close union or conjunction; make up or compose.
4. to compress (metallic or metallic and nonmetallic powders) in a die to be sintered.
5. to crush into compact form for convenient disposal or for storage until disposal: to compact rubbish.

1. a small case containing a mirror, face powder, a puff, and sometimes rouge.
2. Also calledan automobile that is smaller than an intermediate but larger than a subcompact and generally has a combined passenger and luggage volume of 100–110 cu. ft. (2.8–3.1 m).
3. (in powder metallurgy) an object to be sintered formed of metallic or of metallic and nonmetallic powders compressed in a die.

com•pact

1. a formal agreement between two or more parties, states, etc.; contract: the proposed economic compact between Germany and France.