[f. as prec. + -NESS.] Compact quality or condition; closeness of component elements or parts, density, solidity.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. ii. 57. By compactnesse or gravity it may acquire the lowest place, and become the center of the universe.
1665. Phil. Trans., I. 51. The Degree of the compactness of Ice.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xxxviii. (1859), II. 352. Giving order and compactness to the materials of our knowledge.
1839. Thirlwall, Greece, VIII. 413. The phalanx … could no longer preserve … the compactness of its mass.
b. Of style: Terseness, pithiness.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 656. The compactness of his aphoristic sentences.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 349. Epigrammatic compactness of phrase.
