[adj. kuh
m-pakt, kom-, kom-pakt; v. kuhm-pakt; n. kom-pakt] 
| 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): a book compact of form and content. |
| 7. | Also, bicompact. Mathematics. (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. |
| 8. | to join or pack closely together; consolidate; condense. |
| 9. | to make firm or stable. |
| 10. | to form or make by close union or conjunction; make up or compose. |
| 11. | Metallurgy. to compress (metallic or metallic and nonmetallic powders) in a die to be sintered. |
| 12. | to crush into compact form for convenient disposal or for storage until disposal: to compact rubbish. |
| 13. | a small case containing a mirror, face powder, a puff, and sometimes rouge. |
| 14. | Also called compact car. an 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 m3). |
| 15. | Metallurgy. (in powder metallurgy) an object to be sintered formed of metallic or of metallic and nonmetallic powders compressed in a die. |
[kom-pakt] | a formal agreement between two or more parties, states, etc.; contract: the proposed economic compact between Germany and France. |
| com·pact 1 (kəm-pākt', kŏm-, kŏm'pākt') adj.
v. tr.
To be capable of being pressed tightly together or to become so pressed: garbage that compacts easily. n. (kŏm'pākt')
[Middle English, from Latin compāctus, past participle of compingere, to put together : com-, com- + pangere, to fasten; see pag- in Indo-European roots.] com·pact'ly adv., com·pact'ness n. |
| com·pact 2 (kŏm'pākt') n. An agreement or a covenant. See Synonyms at bargain. [Latin compactum, neuter past participle of compacīscī, to make an agreement : com-, com- + pacīscī, to agree; see pact.] |
compact
1. (Or "finite", "isolated") In domain theory, an element d of a cpo D is compact if and only if, for any chain S, a subset of D,
d <= lub S => there exists s in S such that d <= s.
I.e. you always reach d (or better) after a finite number of steps up the chain.
("<=" is written in LaTeX as sqsubseteq).
[The Jargon File]
(1995-01-13)
2. Of a design, describes the valuable property that it can all be apprehended at once in one's head. This generally means the thing created from the design can be used with greater facility and fewer errors than an equivalent tool that is not compact. Compactness does not imply triviality or lack of power; for example, C is compact and Fortran is not, but C is more powerful than Fortran. Designs become non-compact through accreting features and cruft that don't merge cleanly into the overall design scheme (thus, some fans of Classic C maintain that ANSI C is no longer compact).
(1995-01-13)