The corruption “compound” (from the Malay kampung or kampong, a quarter of a village) is the name applied to the enclosed ground, whether garden or waste, which surrounds an Anglo-Indian house. In India the European quarter, as a rule, is separate from the native quarter, and consists of a number of single houses, each standing in a compound, sometimes many acres in extent.
COMPOUND PIER, the architectural term given to a clustered column or pier which consists of a centre mass or newel, to which engaged or semi-detached shafts have been attached, in order to perform, or to suggest the performance of, certain definite structural objects, such as to carry arches of additional orders, or to support the transverse or diagonal ribs of a vault, or the tie beam of an important roof. In these cases, though performing different functions, the drums of the pier are often cut out of one stone. There are, however, cases where the shafts are detached from the pier and coupled to it by armulets at regular heights, as in the Early English period.
COMPRADOR (a Portuguese word used in the East, derived from the Lat. comparare, to procure), originally a native servant in European households in the East, but now the name given to the native managers in European business houses in China, and also to native contractors supplying ships in the Philippines and elsewhere in the East.
COMPRESSION, in astronomy, the deviation of a heavenly body from the spherical form, called also the “ellipticity.” It is numerically expressed by the ratio of the differences of the axes to the major axis of the spheroid. The compression or “flattening” of the earth is about 1/298, which means that the ratio of the equatorial to the polar axis is 298:297 (see [a]Earth, Figure of the]). In engineering the term is applied to the arrangement by which the exhaust valve of a steam-engine is made to close, shutting a portion of the exhaust steam in the cylinder, before the stroke of the piston is quite complete. This steam being compressed as the stroke is completed, a cushion is formed against which the piston does work while its velocity is being rapidly reduced, and thus the stresses in the mechanism due to the inertia of the reciprocating parts are lessened. This compression, moreover, obviates the shock which would otherwise be caused by the admission of the fresh steam for the return stroke. In internal combustion engines it is a necessary condition of economy to compress the explosive mixture before it is ignited: in the Otto cycle, for instance, the second stroke of the piston effects the compression of the charge which has been drawn into the cylinder by the first forward stroke.
COMPROMISE (pronounced cómprŏmize; through Fr. from Lat. compromittere), a term, meaning strictly a joint agreement, which has come to signify such a settlement as involves a mutual adjustment, with a surrender of part of each party’s claim. From the element of danger involved has arisen an invidious sense of the word, imputing discredit, so that being “compromised” commonly means injured in reputation.