compound

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In India and the East generally, a walled inclosure or courtyard containing a residence with the necessary outhouses, servants' quarters, etc.
• To put together or mix (two or more elements or ingredients): as, to compound drugs.
• To join or couple together; combine: as, to compound words.
• To form by uniting or mixing two or more elements or materials.
• To make; constitute; form; establish.
• To put together in due order, as words or sentences; compose.
• To settle amicably; adjust by agreement, as a difference or controversy; compose.
• To settle by agreement for a reduced amount or upon different terms, as a debt or dues of any kind: as, to compound tithes. See II., 3.
• To agree, for a consideration, not to prosecute or punish a wrong-doer for: as, to compound a crime or felony.
• To agree upon concession; come to terms of agreement by abating something of the first demand, or by granting something on both sides; make a compromise: used absolutely, or with for (formerly also on) before the thing accepted or remitted, and with before the person with whom the agreement is made.
• To make a bargain, in general; agree.
• To settle with a creditor by agreement, and discharge a debt on the payment of a less sum in full; or to make an agreement to pay a debt by means or in a manner different from that stipulated or required by law.
• To settle with one who has committed a crime, agreeing for a consideration not to prosecute him. See I., 8.
• To give out; fail: said of a horse in racing.
• To make (a steam-engine) operate on the compound principle, whereby the steam expands first in a small cylinder and does work in propelling the piston, and thence exhausts into a larger low-pressure cylinder, where it expands still further until released at the exhaust when the traverse is completed.
• Composed of two or more elements, parts, or ingredients; not simple.
• In botany, made up of several similar parts aggregated into a common whole.
• In arithmetic, a quantity which consists of more than one denomination, as 5 pounds, 6 shillings, and 9 pence, or 4 miles, 3 furlongs, and 10 yards; hence, the operations of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing such quantities are termed compound addition, compound subtraction, compound multiplication, and compound division.
• noun Something produced by combining two or more ingredients, parts, or elements; a combination of parts or principles forming a whole.
• noun Specifically In grammar, a compound word (which see, under I.).
• noun In chem., a compound body.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To form or make by combining different elements, ingredients, or parts.
• transitive verb To put together, as elements, ingredients, or parts, in order to form a whole; to combine, mix, or unite.
• transitive verb To modify or change by combination with some other thing or part; to mingle with something else.
• transitive verb obsolete To compose; to constitute.
• transitive verb To settle amicably; to adjust by agreement; to compromise; to discharge from obligation upon terms different from those which were stipulated.
• transitive verb to accept of a consideration for forbearing to prosecute, such compounding being an indictable offense. See Theftbote.
• noun In the East Indies, an inclosure containing a house, outbuildings, etc.
• intransitive verb To effect a composition; to come to terms of agreement; to agree; to settle by a compromise; -- usually followed by with before the person participating, and for before the thing compounded or the consideration.
• adjective Composed of two or more elements, ingredients, parts; produced by the union of several ingredients, parts, or things; composite.
• adjective (Arith.) the addition, subtraction, etc., of compound numbers.
• adjective (Crystallog.) a twin crystal, or one seeming to be made up of two or more crystals combined according to regular laws of composition.
• adjective (Mech.) a form of steam engine in which the steam that has been used in a high-pressure cylinder is made to do further service in a larger low-pressure cylinder, sometimes in several larger cylinders, successively.
• adjective (Chem.) See under Ether.
• adjective (Bot.) a flower head resembling a single flower, but really composed of several florets inclosed in a common calyxlike involucre, as the sunflower or dandelion.
• adjective (Math.) See Fraction.
• adjective See Fracture.
• adjective [Eng.] a householder who compounds or arranges with his landlord that his rates shall be included in his rents.
• adjective See Interest.
• adjective (Law) See Larceny.
• adjective (Bot.) a leaf having two or more separate blades or leaflets on a common leafstalk.
• adjective See Microscope.
• adjective See Motion.
• adjective (Math.) one constructed according to a varying scale of denomination; as, 3 cwt., 1 qr., 5 lb.; -- called also denominate number.
• adjective (Arch.) a clustered column.
• adjective (Alg.) a quantity composed of two or more simple quantities or terms, connected by the sign + (plus) or - (minus). Thus, a + b - c, and bb - b, are compound quantities.
• adjective (Chem.) See Radical.