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Compress   /kˈɑmprɛs/  /kəmprˈɛs/   Listen
Compress

verb
(past & past part. compressed; pres. part. compressing)
1.
Make more compact by or as if by pressing.  Synonyms: compact, pack together.
2.
Squeeze or press together.  Synonyms: compact, constrict, contract, press, squeeze.  "The spasm contracted the muscle"



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"Compress" Quotes from Famous Books



... "two," both fired so exactly together, that only one report was heard. Barron was struck in the right hip, as Decatur intended, and sank to the ground. Decatur stood erect a moment and was seen to turn pale, compress his lips, and press his hand against his side. Then he fell, the ball having passed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... quantity. Cotton 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 there are many other dyes and drugs used by them—colocynth, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... 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. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... of the State, Machiavelli turns once more to the qualities and conduct of the Prince. So closely packed are these concluding chapters that it is almost impossible to compress them further. The author at the outset states his purpose: 'Since it is my object to write what shall be useful to whosoever understands it, it seems to me better to follow the practical truth of things rather ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... chamber W and falls directly upon the spraying cone S. The hight of this spraying cone is determined by the tension upon the spring T, below the piston R, the latter being connected to the cone by a spindle L. An increase of the water pressure inside the chamber W will thus compress the spring, and the spraying cone being consequently lowered increases the aperture between it and the sloping lower wall of the chamber W, allowing a greater volume of water to be sprayed. The piston R incidentally prevents water entering ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins

... fashion possible. But the Indledning is to-day, thirty-five years after it was written, fully up to the standard of the best annotated school editions in this country or in England. It is, of course, a little dry and schematic; that could hardly be avoided in an attempt to compress such a vast amount of information into such a small compass, but, for the most part, the details are so clear and vivid that their mass rather heightens than blurs ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... the near relations who take tie field, except obliging, 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

... 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 which ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... sun, were but a monster glass rigged to trick the credulous retina. De Spain, in the saddle in front of the barn, his broad hat brim set on the impassive level of the Western horseman, his lips seeming to compress his thoughts, his lines over his forearm, and his hands half-slipped into the pockets of his snug leather coat, watched Page with his light ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... impossible 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 ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... you have for a compress," remarked the miller, dropping again on his knees. "Pick a few of those Jimson weeds by the fence and lend me your handkerchief—or a couple of them would be still better. There, now, that's the best I can do," he added ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... at home," she answered. "I left it with Israfil, my fair-haired friend, you know." She spoke slowly, holding the end of the violin, and tightening the strings as she did so, the effort causing her to compress her lips so that the words were uttered disjointedly; and as she finished speaking, she raised the instrument to her shoulder and her eyes to Mr. Kilroy's face, into which she gazed intently as she drew her bow across the strings, testing them as to whether they were in tune or not, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... simply "snug" clothing compress the cartilages? How should the apparel of a child be worn? 137. In what direction does the spinal column, in its natural position, curve? What restores it to its natural position when curved laterally? 138. What is the effect if a lateral curved position of the spinal column ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... 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 none; ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... engine bedplates 20 inches above the floor of the building; the 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... before we have done. "If," said Nasmyth, "I were to try to compress into one sentence the whole of the experience I have had during an active and successful life, and offer it to young men as a rule and certain receipt for success in any station, it would be composed in these ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... functions or apply wrong tests. What can books do for us? Dr. Johnson, the least pedantic of men, put the whole matter into a nut-shell (a cocoa-nut shell, if you will—Heaven forbid that I should seek to compress the great Doctor within any narrower limits than my metaphor requires) when he wrote that a book should teach us either to enjoy life or endure it. "Give us enjoyment!" "Teach us endurance!" Hearken to the ceaseless demand and the perpetual prayer of an ever unsatisfied and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... In practice I always keep the affair set up with these additions. The communication between all the parts should be perfectly free, and the tubes should be nearly filled with reagents, so as to avoid having a large volume of air to compress before a pressure can be ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... raised her 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

... poised, so gently she descends from high, It seems a soft dismission from the sky. Her house not ancient, whatsoe'er pretence Her clergy heralds make in her defence. A second century not half-way run, Since the new honours of her blood begun. 350 A Lion[105] old, obscene, and furious made By lust, compress'd her mother in a shade; Then, by a left-hand marriage, weds the dame, Covering adultery with a specious name: So Schism begot; and Sacrilege and she, A well match'd pair, got graceless Heresy. God's and king's rebels ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... "Compress the sum into its solid worth, And if it weigh the importance of a fly, The scales are false, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... this sex, 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 ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... She's got a cold compress, and she's got the entire contents of the plate-chest to clean. And when she's finished that, I'll find her something else. If she thinks she can't work sitting down, she will discover that ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain

... required, the wine thus added will be red, although manufacturers of questionable reputation sometimes employ the solution known as teinte de Fismes. The galiseur in turn hands the bottle to the corker, who places it under a machine furnished with a pair of claws, which compress the cork to a size sufficiently small to allow it to enter the neck of the bottle, and a suspended weight, which in falling drives it home. These corks, which are principally obtained from Catalonia and Andalucia, cost more than twopence each, and are delivered in huge sacks resembling hop-pockets. ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... a la estaca" is differently executed. Such plants are selected from the nursery as are of the thickness of the little finger, or from that to an inch in diameter. In withdrawing them from the ground, great care is taken not to injure or compress the bulbs or buttons within, eight or ten inches of the level of the soil, because these are to serve for the production of fresh roots when the "estaca" is afterwards planted more deeply in its permanent position. The greater part of the capillary roots are cut away with ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... the wound carefully. Then he made a compress of one of the towels, and bound it with the other two. Looking up, he discovered Bennington watching ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... fouled him up again, as he waited for the plane to "sell out," then he remembered that he had to fly it in. With an anxious eye on his air-speed indicator he gave it a little more throttle, then felt the struts compress as the wheels hit. He chopped the throttle and tried out the brakes with tender care. He didn't intend to flip them over through carelessness now. Gradually he brought the jet to a halt, reset flaps, and then rolled the plane back to their starting ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... descendant of one of the oldest families, desired to marry her friend's husband. He charged his wife with various vague acts, one of which, according to the press, was that she did not wear "corsets"—a sort of steel frame which the American women wear to compress the waist. This was not accepted by the learned judge, and the wife then left her husband and went away on a six or eight months' visit. This enabled the husband to put in a claim of desertion, ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... the two ships. 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 first time he had been fortunate enough to "raise the oil" since ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... the bandit-king, I saw him in the street. For I was not to be put off—I waited till he came out. Well, my friend, to compress the tragedy into one act, our hope is shattered— Patatras ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... requires a pump, an air-tight tank, and pipes to the various outlets. The water pumped into the air-tight tank will occupy part of the space generally occupied by the air. The air cannot escape and is, therefore, compressed. Continued pumping will compress the air until the limit of the apparatus is reached. If a valve or faucet that is connected with the tank is opened, the air will expand and force the water out of the opening. This explains in a general way the operation ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... into a dismal gray morning. No land or craft of any kind was in sight. The horizon formed a small, close circle round the ship. Clouds hung low, running before the wind, and bringing intermittently little dashes of rain that seemed still further to compress the walls of horizon. The sea was not what could be called rough, but merely choppy and fretful, with short waves that would not have troubled a larger craft. The steamer proved to be a small, undistinguished dingy-looking boat, more like a commercial tramp than a government vessel. ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... waist (evidently innocent of corsets and tight dresses) of this model woman, and also that of the Greek Slave in the accompanying outlines. These forms are such as unperverted nature and the highest art alike require. To compress the waist, and thereby change its form, pushing the ribs inward, displacing the vital organs, and preventing the due expansion of the lungs, is as destructive to beauty as it is to ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... was able to pack into a short book—he never wrote a long one—such an effect of crowds and events, above all such an effect of time. Nobody knows how to compress so much experience into two or three hundred pages as Balzac did unfailingly. I cannot think that this is due in the least to the laborious interweaving of his books into a single scheme; I could believe that in general a book of Balzac's suffers, rather than gains, by the recurrence of ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... are so large these days that I can not compress them within the confines of a letter. I mean, don't you know, that there is no small talk. We are dealing with life and death propositions, life or death to somebody all ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... persuasion. He was the very counterpart of Thiers, the most sterile orator and statesman of France. Lamartine had studied the French Revolution, he saw the anarchical condition of society, and the ineffectual attempt to compress instead of organizing it; and he conceived the noble idea of collecting the scattered fragments, and uniting them into a harmonious edifice. While the extreme left were employed in removing the pressure from above, Lamartine ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... have a strong distaste 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 ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... forget one great law, as true in the moral world as in the physical,—that repression lessens and deadens. Twice or thrice mowing will kill off the sturdiest crop of weeds; the roots die for want of expression. A compress on a limb will stop its growing; the surgeon knows this, and puts a tight bandage around a tumor; but what if we put a tight bandage about the heart and lungs, as some young ladies of my acquaintance do,—or bandage the feet, as they do in China? And what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... the most illustrious Boston boy that ever lived," said Grandfather. "This is Benjamin Franklin. But I will not try to compress into a few sentences the character of the sage, who, as a Frenchman expressed it, snatched the lightning from the sky and the sceptre from a tyrant. Mr. Sparks must help you to the knowledge ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... fine forms attract our wondering eyes, And soft alarms the pausing heart surprise. Warm from its cell the tender infant born Feels the cold chill of Life's aerial morn; Seeks with spread hands the bosoms velvet orbs, With closing lips the milky fount absorbs; 170 And, as compress'd the dulcet streams distil, Drinks warmth and fragrance from the living rill; Eyes with mute rapture every waving line, Prints with adoring kiss the Paphian shrine, And learns erelong, the perfect form confess'd, IDEAL BEAUTY from its ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... To compress this Essay into the smallest compass, citations have been studiously avoided; yet there is a temptation to illustrate this subject by the introduction of an Epigram from MARTIAL, Lib. ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam

... 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 ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... watchfulness, and there is bread of thought in it, more than in any other lowly feature of all the landscape. For a stone, when it is examined, will be found a mountain in miniature. The fineness of Nature's work is so great, that into a single block, a foot or two in diameter, she can compress as many changes of form and structure, on a small scale, as she needs for her mountains on a large one; and taking moss for forests, and grains of crystal for crags, the surface of a stone in by ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... 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 ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... was any occasion to deplore the decay of their commonwealth or the degeneracy of the age. In fact, when we consider that the founders of the League, with remarkable skill and judgment, managed to compress into a single day the protracted and wasteful obsequies customary among other tribes of the same race, we shall not be surprised to find that they sought to make the ceremonies of the day as solemn and impressive ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... suh! Ef I don' live ter do it, I'll know it'll be 'tended ter right. Now we're gwine out ter de cotton compress, an' git a lot er colored men tergether, an' ef de w'ite folks 'sturbs me, I shouldn't be s'prise' ef dere'd be a mix-up;—an' ef dere is, me an one w'ite man 'll stan' befo' de jedgment th'one ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... rate of the compression of the malleable iron rapidly increases. A bar of cast iron, when at its breaking point by the application of a tensile strain, is stretched about one six-hundredth part of its length; and an equal strain employed to compress it, would shorten it about one ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... manifestations of the consciousness are conditioned by the brain. Let us suspend, by any means, the activity of the encephalic mass, by arresting the circulation of the blood for example, and the psychic function is at once inhibited. Compress the carotid, and you obtain the clouding-over of the intellect. Or, instead of a total abolition, you can have one in detail; sever a sensory nerve with the bistoury, and all the sensations which that nerve transmits to the brain are suppressed. Consciousness appears only when the molecular ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet

... also hydrogen and oxygen, and violent heat is generated, causing a violent molecular bombardment of the sides of the vessel containing the mixture. Now, if the mixture be compressed it becomes hotter and hotter, until a point is reached at which it ignites spontaneously. Early gas-engines did not compress the charge before ignition. Alphonse Beau de Rochas, a Frenchman, first thought of making the piston of the engine squeeze the mixture before ignition; and from the year 1862, when he proposed this innovation, the success ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... necessary that these dies should fit each other in a very accurate manner, so as to compress the iron equally in every part. To make them fit thus exactly, massive as they are in magnitude, and irregular in form, is a work of immense labor. They are first cast as nearly as possible to the form intended, but as such castings always warp more or less in cooling, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... 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 ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... which gave the needed pressure without impeding the circulation anywhere. As I finished she gave me a look of budding confidence, and seemed satisfied that all was well. Several times, night and day, we wet the compress and readjusted the bands, until all appearances ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... disappeared, and re-appeared at the top of the aerostat under the form of an immense jet of burning gas. This sinister light projected over the Boulevard, and over the quarter Montmartre. Then I saw the unfortunate woman rise, twice attempt to compress the orifice of the balloon, to extinguish the fire, then seat herself in the car and seek to direct its descent; for she did not fall. The combustion of the gas lasted several minutes. The balloon, diminishing by degrees, continued to descend, ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne

... which such bitter waters have been accustomed to flow. But these motives have diminished in their influence. I have contracted a disgust for life and all its appendages. Writing, which was at first a pleasure, is changed into a burthen. I shall compress into a small compass what remains ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... descending to a smaller size of type than would have been compatible with the dignity of the several societies to be named, I could not compress my intended list within the limits of a single page, and thinking, moreover, that the act would carry with it an air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only exhibit to him the diplomas ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... he was dragged sidewise and lowered on to the rock, a change he gladly welcomed, for the rope had hurt him intolerably, and seemed to compress his chest so that ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... of seeing 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 through ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... 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 ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... were rising and scattering with ominous swiftness from west to east, and drawing a shadowy veil across the sky. The wind was still, save in the upper regions of the air, so that the weight of the atmosphere seemed to compress the steamy heat of the earth into the forest glades. The tall forest trees shut out every breath of air so completely that the little valley across which the sportsman was making his way was as hot ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... narrow room of one poor soul He should come whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain! Solomon said, 'How much less this house which I have built,'—well may we say the same of our little hearts. But He can compress Himself into that small compass and expand His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... lately received and stands on your Journals. I must be deeply concerned whenever it is my misfortune to continue a difference with the majority of this House; but as the reasons for that difference are my apology for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a very few words. I shall compress them into as small a body as I possibly can, having already debated that matter at large when the question was before ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... untaught arrests the balmy gales; Tries its new tongue in tones unknown, and hears The strange vibrations with unpractised ears; Seeks with spread hands the bosom's velvet orbs. With closing lips the milky fount absorbs; 30 And, as compress'd the dulcet streams distil, Drinks warmth and fragrance from the living rill;— Eyes with mute rapture every waving line, Prints with adoring kiss the Paphian shrine, And learns erelong, the perfect form confess'd, 35 Ideal Beauty from its mother's breast. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... literary sequence and have not infrequently gone beyond the 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 therefore to apprehend ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... different on the 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

... is so superlatively excellent, that I can only wish it perfect, which I can't help feeling it is not quite. Indulge me in a few conjectures. What I am going to propose would make it more compress'd and I think more energic, tho' I am sensible at the expence of many beautiful lines. Let it begin "Is this the land of song-ennobled line," and proceed to "Otway's famish'd form." Then "Thee Chatterton," to "blaze of Seraphim." Then ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... upon his back, in such a position that the legs should be free; one of them retained his grasp on the left limb, holding it flexed, while an assistant, seizing the right, clasped it tightly with both his hands in the region of the groin in order to compress the arteries. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... followed by moral or spiritual disorder, loss of balance, decline of power. To see the world with clear eyes, as Shakespeare saw it, instead of seeing it through distorted vision, as Paul Verlaine saw it, one must think, feel, and act. To compress one's vital power into any one of these forms or channels of expression is to limit growth, to destroy the balance and symmetry of development, to lose clarity of vision, and to invite that devastating disease of our time and of all ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... and then Mrs. Widdup's hand. She blushed. Oh, yes, it can be done. Just hold your breath and compress ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... juicy clover, And with 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. ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow

... longitudinal tension and transverse compression. Within the elastic limit the strains increase directly as the distance from the axis of the specimen. The outer elements are subjected to tensile stresses, and as they become twisted tend to compress those near the axis. The elongated elements also contract laterally. Cross sections which were originally plane become warped. With increasing strain the lateral adhesion of the outer fibres is destroyed, ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... 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 living body, on account of the profuse ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... compress into it the desires of a lifetime. After years of proud individualism they have learned that they are atoms, cogs, helpless, the sport of iron and steel and powder and the ambitions and stupidities of men whose lives are never risked. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... wish it could be so," Lisle said. "But although some articles of food might be compressed, I don't think we should ever be able to compress rice or ghee. A handful of rice, when it is boiled, makes enough for a meal; and I don't imagine that it could possibly be ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... application, the equalizing piston 26 moves to the extreme right, the knob on the piston strikes the graduating stem 59, causing it to compress the graduating spring 46, and move the slide valve 48 to the ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous

... thoughts that drift; Be steel, soul, Compress thyself Into a round, bright whole. I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... packing material on top of the battery so that cover will compress it tightly, stuffing it under cover boards as ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... compress in few words the brief account of our departure and quick return, and the gain, I promise this, that if I am supported by our most invincible sovereigns with a little of their help, as much gold can be supplied as they will need, indeed as much of spices, of cotton, of chewing-gum (which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... the 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 I ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... it a heavy labour to master them. The multiplication of proofs, necessary and interesting when the new truths had to be established, are however less needful now when these truths have become household words in science. I have therefore tried in the following pages to compress the body, without injury to the spirit, of these imperishable investigations, and to present them in a form which should be convenient and useful to the ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... things, the oracles of common acceptance, the infinitely diversified properties of human character, the many complexities of our conduct and destiny—all these he watched playing freely around him, and he felt no haste to compress his experience into maxims and system. He was absolutely uncramped by any of the formal mannerisms of the spirit. He was wholly uncorrupted by the affectation of culture with which the great Goethe infected part of the world a generation ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... possible," replied the professor. "I must arrange the cylinder, compress the air and lay ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... 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, till ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various

... condition occurs upon rare occasions as the result of injury such as falls which cause extreme abduction of the legs, or in pelvic fracture where the nerve is directly injured, or when melanotic tumors or other new growths compress the nerve in such manner that its function is suspended. Paralysis of the obturator nerve or nerves is met with rather frequently, notwithstanding, in mares, following dystocia. The nerves (one or both) may become bruised at the brim of the obturator foramen by being ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... English. It is absurd for one workman to do both rhyming and thinking. In this go-ahead age and country, that were a palpable waste of time. Take any 'matter-ful' author, cut out a juicy slice of his thought, and make that your material. Trim it, compress it, turn it and twist it upside down and inside out, vary it any way but the author's own, and you will be likely to effect a speedy and wholesome operation. What a saving of time is here! Who will be silly enough to manufacture ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... 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 of literature ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... are generally believed to date from the tenth century A.D., though some writers have endeavoured to place the custom many centuries earlier. It must always be carefully remembered that Manchu women—the women of the dynasty which has ruled since 1644—do not compress their feet. Consequently, the empresses of modern times have feet of the natural size; neither is the practice in force among the Hakkas, a race said to have migrated from the north of China to the south in the ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... yeah, but dey's good when ah gits 'em. She gimmie Sis' dresses. Sis' one ob Missus' little girls. An' de whi' chillun dey learn me how tuh read, too. Cose de whi' folks din wan' yuh to learn. Ah 'member jes' as clare as yestidy how one dem chillun learn me how tuh read "compress-i-bility". Thought ah was suppin' den! Ah kin read Bible lil now but ah can' write; neber ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... "I will compress the story as far as may be done without omitting anything vital to the case. It is conceivable that you may even have read some account of the matter. It is the supposed murder of Colonel Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... been our aim in this book to reproduce the substance of Homer's Odyssey in simple modern English. We have not hesitated to omit and compress where we thought fit, but we have done our best to make a faithful translation within our limits, and to keep what we ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... 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 window. He always had a passion for firearms; so he stopped ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... second, because until experience shall show what kind of a horsewoman you are likely to be, you cannot tell which will be the more suitable and comfortable. Laced boots, a plain, dark underskirt, cut princess, undergarments without a wrinkle, and no tight bands to compress veins, or to restrain muscles by adding their resistance to the force of gravitation make up the list of details to which you must give your attention before leaving home. If you be addicted to light gymnastics you will find it beneficial to practise ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... curious object hung near this last. It was a sort of conical bag, woven out of palm-fibre, with a loop at the bottom, through which loop a strong pole was passed, that acted as a lever when the article was in use. This wicker-work bag was the "tipiti." Its use was to compress the grated pulp of the manioc roots, so as to separate the juice from it, and thus make "cassava." The roots of the yucca, or manioc plant, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... ever tells you that a feller by the name o' Tom Collins is lookin' for you an' anxious to see you about something important, just skin your eye at 'im, tell 'im right out that you don't give a dang about Tom Collins. La me, what a fool—what a fool I was! A feller workin' at the cotton- compress told me that a man by the name o' Tom Collins wanted to see me right off, an' that he was up at the wholesale grocery. Fool that I was, I hitched my hosses an' struck out lickity-split for the grocery. I axed ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... were possible to compress into a single paragraph a theory so complex as that which would explain the origin and nature of Indian caste, I should attempt to sum it up in some such words as the following: A caste is a marriage union, the constituents of which were drawn from various different tribes ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

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

... face and hands with ice-cold water, and then laid a snow compress on the sick man's head, speaking to him in quiet, gentle tones, till he was soothed again ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... took her by the hand, and led her to the door, and begg'd she would not forget the lesson I had given her.—She said, indeed she would not;—and, as she uttered it with some earnestness, she turn'd about, and gave me both her hands, closed together, into mine;—it was impossible not to compress them in that situation;—I wish'd to let them go; and all the time I held them, I kept arguing within myself against it,- -and still I held them on.—In two minutes I found I had all the battle to fight ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... necessary for "their Correspondencie with Witches." It is a hard thing for spirits "to force their thin and tenuious bodies into a visible consistence.... For, in this Action, their Bodies must needs be exceedingly compress'd."[12] To the objection that the belief in evil beings makes it plausible that the miracles of the Bible were wrought by the agency of devils,[13] he replied that the miracles of the Gospel are notoriously contrary to the tendency, aims, and interests of the kingdom of darkness.[14] The suggestion ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... own language, and he contended that the task had 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 ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell

... The one beside it is one of those of the lately built college at Edinburgh. I have not taken it as worse than many others (just as I have not taken the St. Mark's tower as better than many others); but it happens to compress our British system of tower building into small space. The Venetian tower rises 350 feet,[62] and has no buttresses, though built of brick; the British tower rises 121 feet, and is built of stone, but is supposed to be incapable of standing ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... by no means ripe for revolution, but only stung by desperate revolt: these are they who are quick enough and firm enough to bind all the good forces of the State into one cosmic force, therewith to compress or crush all chaotic forces: these are they who throttle treason and stab rebellion,—who fear not, when defeat must send down misery through ages, to insure victory by using weapons of the hottest and sharpest. Theirs, then, is a statesmanship which it may be well for the leading ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... somewhere among the people who will read this, there is one great-hearted and wealthy American who would sleep better of nights for having lifted to the lips of a wounded soldier the cup of pure water that he craves; for having furnished to ten thousand wounds a sterile and soothing wet compress. ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... meal in silence, and when it was over sought out his guest to administer a few much-needed stage-directions. Owing, however, to the ubiquity of Jane he wasted nearly the whole of the afternoon before he obtained an opportunity. Even then the interview was short, the farmer having to compress into ten seconds instructions for Lord Fairmount to express a desire to take his meals with the family, and his dinner at the respectable hour of 1 p.m. Instructions as to a change of bedroom were frustrated by the ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... these two rough surfaces with a good liquid glue and place them together. With a series of clamps compress them tightly. In the absence of clamps, a pile of bricks or weights may be used. After several days it will ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... wheel and a barrel seem to have the flimsiest possible constitutions; they consist of numerous separate pieces all oddly shaped, which, when lying in a heap, look hopelessly unfitted for union; but put them properly together, compress them with a tire in the one case and with hoops in the other, and a remarkably enduring organisation will result. A wheel with a ton weight on the top of it in the waggons of South Africa will jolt for thousands ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... moment, a long motor veil of stout make. He turned towards her, pushing up his coat sleeve as high as it would go, and shewing her where to put the bandage. She helped him to turn back his shirt sleeve, and then wound the veil tightly round the arm, so as to compress the arteries. Her fingers were warm and strong. He watched them—he felt ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "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 of the extra hundred ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... a pad of clean cloth on the wound and bandage firmly. Raise the part affected. If raising the limbs or applying the pad does not control the bleeding, compress with your two thumbs over bone and as near the wound as possible. Give no stimulants as long as bleeding ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian

... occur, with wonderful accuracy. Particulars of every vessel, with name, armament, tonnage, &c., and details of the internal revenue system, are placed before us. We cannot offer even an outline of the contents of this volume, because the details are so multifarious that we could compress their index into no reasonable space. A copy of this book should be in the hands of every reader, thinker, and business man in the country. It is indeed a 'little library,' a 'photograph of the world' for the last two years of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... 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 of Virgil. Licences of versification ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... if we allow them to be sullied by detailed accounts of crime and sin. Peace of mind, as Ruskin beautifully observes, "must come in its own time, as the waters settle themselves into clearness as well as quietness; you can no more filter your mind into purity than you can compress it into calmness; you must keep it pure if you would have it pure, and throw no stones into it if you would ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane through which he saw for miles. His lips twitched, and he seemed to compress his frame, as if to bear better. His usual habit was not to consider whether destiny were hard upon him or not—the shape of his ideals in cases of affliction being simply a moody "I am to suffer, I perceive." "This much scourging, then, it is for me." But now through ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... left side of the maiden on a little carpet. From time to time one or the other laid his hand over the heart of the sufferer, or listened to her breathing, or opened his case of medicaments, and moistened the compress on her wounded breast ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of iron may be applied to the bleeding surface. Sometimes obstinate or even alarming bleeding may follow the pulling of a tooth. The best remedy for this is to plug the cavity with lint or cotton wet with the solution of persulphate of iron, and apply a compress which may be kept in place by closing ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... 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 ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... sensibly compressed. But now, if the tumbler contained only air, and if a ball were to be put in at the top, just large enough to fit the tumbler exactly, and if a strong man were to crowd it down with all his strength, he would, perhaps, compress the air into half the space which it ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott

... take care of yourself. I think a cold compress on your forehead to-night would do ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... all; but it appears to me that these two and three words comprise and compress all that can be said on the subject,—and then, in Italian, they are absolute music. They contain doubt, hope, and humility; nothing can be more pathetic than the 'implora' and the modesty of the request;—they ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... mother received a 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 meant that he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... not be easy or interesting to attempt to compress the details of a long war of seven years in a single lecture. The records of war have great uniformity,—devastation, taxes, suffering, loss of life and of property (except by the speculators and government agents), the flight of literature, general demoralization, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... sentiments and cravings which gave to her countenance an expression of somber lowering and concentrated passion, such as it was wont to exhibit in those days when her simulated deafness and dumbness forced her to subdue all the workings of her excited soul, and compress her vermilion lips to check the ebullition of that language which on those occasions struggled to pour ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... if we were doing great wrong to the scene we are contemplating in delaying it by the description of little circumstances and individual thoughts and feelings. But linger as we may, we cannot compress into a chapter—we could not crowd into a volume—all that passed through the minds and stirred the emotions of the awe-struck company which was gathered about the scene of danger and of terror. ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... which are the conditions of moral force; and in the last few years of confirmed manhood he had become so keenly aware of this that what he most longed for was either some external event, or some inward light, that would urge him into a definite line of action, and compress his wandering energy. He was ceasing to care for knowledge—he had no ambition for practice—unless they could both be gathered up into one current with his emotions; and he dreaded, as if it were a dwelling-place of lost souls, that dead anatomy of culture which turns the universe into a mere ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... subtlety of logic in the Christian world, it has come to be believed that there can be no love outside the conventional process of courtship and marriage. One life, one love, is the Christian idea, and into this sluice or mold it has been endeavoring to compress the whole world. Pagan thought held no such belief. A writing of divorce for trivial causes was the theory of the elders; and in the primeval world nature apparently holds no scheme for the unity of two beyond the temporary care of the young. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... the stage compress themselves into a few hours, but the tragedies of real life are of slow and heavy march, and the heart-sickness of delay and hope and dread alike deferred is one of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to the ankle. It was trimmed with red; she had stuck a red artificial flower in her hair, and had on a pair of red stockings with dancing slippers, probably of her own make. Over her shoulders was a light gauzy shawl. Her father took his station in a corner, and motioned to Zachariah to compress himself into another. By dint of some little management and piling up the chairs an unoccupied space of about twelve feet square was obtained. Pauline began dancing, her father accompanying her with an oboe. ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... 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 a reassuring telegram; and here all rested ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... so much as look into Himself? The good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish; well-nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the threescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are we? Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and that fade-away again into air and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... sell them new sets of teeth, called insular sets, which can be fitted over their natural front teeth, and will protrude about a third of an inch beyond the upper lip. And they will have corsets offered them whose aim is to prolong the waist to the farthest possible limits and compress the fairest forms—a fact, for report says they lace in London, whilst here we have nearly abandoned the corset. Well, my Paris, do you tremble and shiver? Oh! when those days of horror come to pass! when you see ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... Doremus may compress'd powder compound, Or, at home, wrap the Obelisk with paraffine round; Or may treat Toxicology ever anew, To enrich the ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... and of the peasants who had come with the carts resounded as they shouted to one another in the yard and in the house. The count had been out since morning. The countess had a headache brought on by all the noise and turmoil and was lying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress on her head. Petya was not at home, he had gone to visit a friend with whom he meant to obtain a transfer from the militia to the active army. Sonya was in the ballroom looking after the packing of the glass and china. Natasha was sitting on the floor ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy



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