a. [f. COMPRESS v. + -IBLE; the form of the suffix is owing to the vb. being referred to L. compress-us; derivation from L. compressāre, F. compresser, would give compressable: cf. PRESSABLE. So mod. F. compressible.] That may be compressed; capable of compression.
a. 1691. Boyle, Wks. (1772), III. 508. Not … to conclude that the air is so much more rarefiable than compressible.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., I. xi. 442. Permanently-elastic fluids are all compressible, transparent, colourless, invisible, and not condensable by cold.
1855. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon, II. xxvi. 481. You will have to restrain and combat the two least compressible forces in the political world.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 794. Both layers were … in a state of tension … the one [layer] … was but slightly extensible or compressible.
b. Of the pulse: see quot.
1865. Pall Mall G., 12 May, 1. The physicians have an expression which they apply to a feverish pulse which appears to vanish under the pressure of the finger; they call it a compressible pulse.
1875. H. Wood, Therap. (1879), 159. The slow pulse is sometimes moderately full, but is always very soft and compressible.
Hence Compressibleness.
1730–6. Bailey, Compressibility, compressibleness, capableness to be pressed close. Hence in Johnson, etc.
