Word of the Day:

March 7, 2022

compendious

adjective kum-PEN-dee-us

What it Means

Compendious means "concise" or "comprehensive."

// The book is fairly short and provides a compendious account of the war.

// The teacher has a compendious knowledge of the subject.

See the entry

Compendious in Context

"But as a far-reaching, compendious and elegantly turned examination of a region and its peoples, this book is unlikely to be surpassed." — Mick Brown, The Daily Telegraph (London), 22 Aug. 2020

More example sentences

Did You Know?

Compendious comes from Latin compendium, meaning "saving," "shortcut," and, in its most literal sense, "that which is weighed together." Compendium has its source in the Latin verb compendere, meaning "to weigh together."

Quiz

Fill in blanks to complete a word for a brief communication written for interoffice circulation: m _ _ _ r _ _ d _ _.

View the Answer