sb. and a. Obs. [ad. L. compendiāri-us short, compendious, f. compendium: see below. The sb. represents L. compendiārium, the neuter of the adj. used subst.: see -ARIUM, -ARY.]
A. sb. A compendium.
1589. Nashe, Pref. Greene’s Arcadia (1616), 7. Their ouerfraught studies, with trifling compendiaries.
1622. Misselden, Free Trade, 42. An Epitome or Compendiary of all the former Statutes.
a. 1631. Donne, Serm., xxxii. 316. A Compendiary and Summary Abridgment.
B. adj. Compendious, expeditious, brief.
1609. Bp. Barlow, Answ. Nameless Catholic, 20. A Compendiary limitation.
1677. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, II. III. 100. To circumvent some one, and by a compendiary way to reduce him under his power.
1801–15. Fuseli, Lect. Art, x. (1848), 531. That compendiary method which … has ruined the arts of every country by reducing execution to a recipe.
