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Bandage vs Compress - What's the difference?

bandage | compress |

As nouns the difference between bandage and compress

is that bandage is a strip of gauze or similar material used to protect or support a wound or injury while compress is (folded_cloth) A multiply folded piece of cloth, a pouch of ice etc., used to apply to a patient's skin, cover the dressing of wounds, and placed with the aid of a bandage to apply pressure on an injury.

As verbs the difference between bandage and compress

is that bandage is to apply a bandage to something while compress is to make smaller; to press or squeeze together, or to make something occupy a smaller space or volume.

bandage

English

(wikipedia bandage)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A strip of gauze or similar material used to protect or support a wound or injury.
  • * 1883: (Robert Louis Stevenson), (Treasure Island)
    • he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed.
  • A strip of cloth bound round the head and eyes as a blindfold.
  • * 1844: (Alexander Dumas), (The Count of Monte Cristo) [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_75]
    • the president informed him that one of the conditions of his introduction was that he should be eternally ignorant of the place of meeting, and that he would allow his eyes to be bandaged, swearing that he would not endeavor to take off the bandage .
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=17 citation , passage=The face which emerged was not reassuring. It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue. […].}}

    Derived terms

    * adhesive bandage * compression bandage * gauze bandage * triangular bandage

    Related terms

    * dressing * splint

    Verb

    (bandag)
  • To apply a bandage to something.
  • * 1879: Samuel Clemens (as Mark Twain), A Tramp Abroad, [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=644473384&tag=Twain,+Mark,+1835-1910:+A+Tramp+Abroad,+1879&query=+bandaging&id=TwaTram]
    • ...they ate...whilst they chatted, disputed and laughed. The door to the surgeon's room stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, and bandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturb anyone's appetite.

    compress

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) compresser, from compressare 'to press hard/together', from compressus, the past participle of comprimere 'to compress', itself from com- 'together' + premere 'to press'

    Verb

  • To make smaller; to press or squeeze together, or to make something occupy a smaller space or volume.
    • The force required to compress a spring varies linearly with the displacement.
  • * D. Webster
    • events of centuries compressed within the compass of a single life
  • * Melmoth
    • The same strength of expression, though more compressed , runs through his historical harangues.
  • To be pressed together or folded by compression into a more economic, easier format.
    • ''Our new model compresses easily, ideal for storage and travel
  • To condense into a more economic, easier format.
    • This chart compresses the entire audit report into a few lines on a single diagram.
  • To abridge.
    • If you try to compress the entire book into a three-sentence summary, you will lose a lot of information.
  • (technology) To make digital information smaller by encoding it using fewer bits.
  • (obsolete) To embrace sexually.
    • (Alexander Pope)
    Synonyms
    * (press together ): compact, condense, pack, press, squash, squeeze * (be pressed together ): contract * (condense, abridge ): abridge, condense, shorten, truncate
    Antonyms
    * (press together ): expand * (be pressed together ): decontract * (condense, abridge ): expand, lengthen * (make computing data smaller ): uncompress
    Derived terms
    * compressed * compressed air * compressedly * compressibility * compressible * compression * compressive * compressive strength * compressor * decompress
    Related terms
    * compression

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) compresse, from compresser 'to compress', from Late (etyl) compressare 'to press hard/together', from compressus, the past participle of comprimere 'to compress', itself from com- 'together' + premere 'to press'

    Noun

    (es)
  • A multiply folded piece of cloth, a pouch of ice etc., used to apply to a patient's skin, cover the dressing of wounds, and placed with the aid of a bandage to apply pressure on an injury.
    • He held a cold compress over the sprain.
  • A machine for compressing
    • Related terms
    * compression