compression

noun

application of balanced inward ("pushing") forces to different points on a material or structure, that is, forces with no net sum or torque directed so as to reduce its size in one or more directions
to press together or make more compact

Pronunciation: /kəmˈpɹɛʃ.ən/ / /kəmˈpɹeʃ.ən/

Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French compression, from Latin compressiō, equivalent to compress + -ion.

An increase in density; the act of compressing, or the state of being compressed; compaction.
The cycle of an internal combustion engine during which the fuel and air mixture is compressed.
The process by which data is compressed.
“Due to the presence of long-range correlations in language [21], [22] it is not possible to compute accurate measures of the entropy by estimating block probabilities directly. More efficient nonparametric methods that work even in the presence of long-range correlations are based on the property that the entropy of a sequence is a lower bound to any lossless compressed version of it [15]. Thus, in principle, it is possible to estimate the entropy of a sequence by finding its length after being compressed by an optimal algorithm. In our analysis, we used an efficient entropy estimator derived from the Lempel-Ziv compression algorithm that converges to the entropy [19], [23], [24], and shows a robust performance when applied to correlated sequences [25] (see Materials and Methods).”
The electronic process by which any sound's gain is automatically controlled.
The deviation of a heavenly body from a spherical form.