kəmˈpendēəm sometimes käm- noun
( plural compendiums -ēəmz ; or compen·dia -ēə)
Etymology: Medieval Latin, from Latin, saving, gain, shortcut, from compendere to weigh, from com- + pendere to weigh — more at pendant
1.
a. : a brief compilation or composition consisting of a reduction and condensation of the subject matter of a larger work : abridgment , abstract
a one-volume compendium of the multivolume original
b. : a work treating in brief form the important features of a whole field of knowledge or subject matter category
a compendium of physics
c. : a list of a number of brief items : catalog , inventory
a compendium of all the fashionable faults likely to be found in a young … novelist — Time
2. archaic : saving , economy
3. : a folder containing writing paper and envelopes
Synonyms:
syllabus , digest , pandect , survey , sketch , pr é cis , aperçu : a compendium gathers in brief, orderly, and intelligible form, sometimes outlined, the essential facts
A Treatise on Epidemic Cholera which contained little original matter but was published as a compendium of the existing knowledge of this disease — W.R.Steiner
A syllabus , often presented with a series of headings, points, or propositions, gives concise statements affording a view of the whole and an indication of its significance
no party program, no official syllabus of opinions, which we all have to defend — W.R.Inge
A digest presents a body of information gathered from many sources and arranged and classified for ready accessibility, often alphabetized and indexed; the word also indicates any condensed easy-to-read version
the only hope of gaining such knowledge lies in a summarization and thorough digest of the huge body of county statistics already available — D.J.Bogue
the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, now in its fifth year of uninterrupted weekly appearance, a seventy-thousand word a week digest of forty Russian newspapers and periodicals — Mortimer Graves
A pandect is a systematic digest covering the whole of a monumental subject
no printed body of modern social history, either by purpose or accident, contains a richer pandect of the efficient impulses of its age — Christopher Morley
A survey is a brief comprehensive presentation giving main outlines, often as a preliminary aid to later study of more detailed treatment
the policy of the Board and its founder being to make first of all a thorough survey of the educational needs of the country — J.D.Greene
an essay on the Renaissance, not a history of the Renaissance. It omits mention of many interesting details of the vast transformation in an effort to determine, through a broad survey of its more salient features, the fundamental nature of the movement — G.C.Sellery
A sketch is a slight tentative preliminary presentation subject to much later change, emendation, and amplification
to give anything but the most fragmentary sketch of the winter of '94 and '95 in Berlin is impossible — David Fairchild
The American Chancery Digest, including state and federal equity decisions, with an introductory sketch of equity courts and their jurisdiction — V.L.Wilkinson
A pr é cis is a concise clear-cut statement or restatement of main matters, often a report or a summary suggesting the style or tone of an original
a carefully prepared critical text of Guido, with a short critical introduction, a full critical apparatus, and English précis printed concurrently — Times Literary Supplement
An aperçu is a sketch giving a very quick, perhaps impressionistic compression of the whole, with all details omitted
popular books which give an aperçu of recent research, in order to have some idea of the general scientific purpose served by particular facts and laws — Bertrand Russell