compact
compressed
concise
condensed
constricted
dense
solid
miniaturized
compare
approach
approximate
correspond
parallel
resemble
savor of
smack of
word used in place of all three of the other terms but more often as a substitute for communicable and contagious than for infectious. See
VIRUS.
Antonyms: noncommunicable.
These words refers to confinement or weightiness in a relatively small space. Compact in its most general use suggests a physique that is small but firm and shapely. In a more specific and technical sense, compact suggests that the essentials of something useful have been reduced to a smaller scale for convenience: a compact automobile; compact luggage for air travel. An intensification of this trend toward utilitarian smallness is designated by the fairly recent miniaturized, which refers to the making of smaller and smaller electronic equipment through the use of transistors; this makes the inclusion of more equipment feasible in situations where bulk and weight are critical, as in space travel: the miniaturized computer; the miniaturized radio.
Solid and dense emphasize weightiness, but solid does not necessarily suggest reduction to a small space, only the rigidity or firmness of a material. In reference to a physique, it suggests one without fat or flabbiness: solid muscle. Dense suggests the crowding of a heavy substance into a confined space; it may, unlike solid, refer to gasses or liquids as well as solids: dense fog; a dense forest.
Concise, condensed, and compressed suggest progressively greater confinement in space; one use of this progression is to suggest brevity in writing or a lack of wordiness. Concise suggests the use of exactly as many words as are required to express something and no more; it would apply more usually to technical, factual work, but may apply to imaginative prose: a concise report; the concise sentences of Hemingway. Condensed suggests the boiling down of a longer piece of writing to its rudiments: a condensed book. Compressed suggests extreme concision, but not necessarily that something longer has been shortened: a compressed statement that will explain the already condensed report. Condensed and compressed also have specific uses in the physical sciences. Condensed refers to the heating of a liquid so that water is driven off and a denser or semi solid substance remains: condensed milk. Compressed in this context refers to the putting of a gas under pressure to make it occupy less space: compressed air.
Constricted suggests extreme confinement in general, with an added note of uncomfortable limitation: constricted movement in the crowded subway car. See minute, shorten, small, terse.
Antonyms: extended, loose, verbose.
These words refer to things that are roughly similar but not exactly alike. Compare suggests that one thing is like another in some significant way, however unlike in others: a war that compares to the Korean conflict in its evident stalemate of constructive alternatives. In the imperative, the word may also be an invitation to regard two things side by side in order to note their differences as well as their similarities: Compare these examples of Rembrandt’s early and late styles. Resemble is not readily used in the imperative, but otherwise it is closely related to compare. Its stress, however, is on a closer likeness, indicating that one thing compares in a number of ways to something else. Also, the word carries a stronger visual suggestion than compare: children who resemble their mother; a girl who resembled someone I used to know; an argument that resembles an earlier but now discredited theory.
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In many uses, correspond is a more formal word for ideas suggested by resemble : an activist movement that corresponds to similar movements in the 1930’s. The word has its own area of meaning, however, in suggesting things that are alike in that they match or complement each other: an availability of funds that seldom corresponds to the needs of units at work in the field. Parallel can also be used as a more formal substitute for resemble, but most often it suggests the separateness of two similar things: projects in the North that would parallel those underway in the deep South; proposals that not only paralleled but actually preceded Darwin’s.
With approximate, the emphasis is on the roughness of the likeness: a bill that only approximated the demands of the lobbyists. The word may also suggest that one thing falls short of matching another in obvious ways: designs that desperately attempted to approximate the latest Paris fashions. Approach is like approximate in suggesting that one thing cannot measure up to something with which it is compared’, the special emphasis here, however, is on quantity or volume: stock market levels that only approached previous highs. Often, the word emphasizes a lower level: a book that approaches his others in quality.
Savor of suggests that one thing only vaguely compares to another in some almost elusive way. Thus the amount of similarity suggested is even less than for approximate and approach’, a novel that savors of a feeble attempt to mimic Joyce; a northern port that nevertheless somehow savored of the Mediterranean in its whitewashed houses and tiled roofs. While savor of can suggest equally well an advantageous or unfortunate likeness, the more pungent and colloquial smack of almost exclusively suggests an undesirable similarity: an offer that smacks of bribery. Both words tend to relate a single example to a larger category of things which it resembles, however distantly. See counterpart, DUPLICATE, SIMILAR.
Antonyms: contrast, oppose.
These words all denote the urging or driving of a person to do something or the obtaining of the performance of some action, all by the use of irresistible physical or moral force. Compel may have as its agent a person, an impersonal entity, a law, an action, or a set of conditions, and its object may be a person or an action. A parent may compel his child to do his lessons by threatening to suspend his allowance; the government compels young men to perform military service; the law compels one to report one’s income on pain of penalty; an attack compels one to defend oneself; a recession may compel an employer to lay off many of his employees; the government may take steps to compel compliance with the law.
Force suggests an actual physical process, the use of power, energy, or strength to accomplish something or to subdue resistance: to force a confession out of someone; to force the enemy back; to force a lock; to force someone to change an opinion; to force a smile. Coerce can imply the actual use of force but very often suggests its potential in an attempt to secure the surrender of the will: A child may be coerced into obedience by physical punishment or by the threat of it.
Constrain has connotations of repression, restriction, confinement, or limitation. It means to compel, but often suggests that the action being prompted or urged is in a negative direction or at least away from that which one may consider positive or pleasant: a man who was constrained by his weak heart to give up all forms of strenuous exercise.
compel
coerce
constrain
force
necessitate
oblige
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