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. W. Barlow, Answ. Nameless Cath., 20. Who knoweth not, that the word ONELY doth not so much signifie an hypocoristicall alleuiation, as 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.
