Compound may refer to:

Architecture and built environments

Compound (enclosure) Compound when applied to a human habitat refers to a cluster of buildings in an enclosure, having a shared or associated purpose, such as the houses of an extended family (e.g. the Kennedy Compound for the Kennedy family). The enclosure may be a ...

, a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall **

Compound (fortification) In military science, a compound is a type of fortification made up of walls or fences surrounding several buildings in the center of a large piece of land. The walls can either serve the purpose of being tall, thick, and impenetrable, in which case ...

, a version of the above fortified with defensive structures *

Compound (migrant labour) A compound is a key institution in a system such as that which regulated labour on mines in South Africa from the later nineteenth century. The tightly controlled closed compound which came to typify the phenomenon in that country originated on the ...

, a hostel for migrant workers such as those historically connected with mines in South Africa *

The Compound The Compound, also known as Street Patterns or The Grid, is an area in southwestern Palm Bay, Florida, similar to Flagler Estates. It is a largely undeveloped area of some of paved road. General Development Corporation began development ...

, an area of Palm Bay, Florida, US *

Komboni A komboni is a type of informal housing compound or shanty town common to Zambia, particularly the capital city of Lusaka. It is characterized by a low income and a high population density. Kombonis typically began as housing for employees of a p ...

or compound, a type of slum in Zambia

Government and law

Composition (fine) Compounding is a legal procedure whereby a criminal or delinquent avoids prosecution in a court of law, potentially leading to the confiscation of his estate or some other punishment, in exchange for his payment to the authorities of a financial pen ...

, a legal procedure in use after the English Civil War **

Committee for Compounding with Delinquents In 1643, near the start of the English Civil War, Parliament set up two committees the Sequestration Committee which confiscated the estates of the Royalists who fought against Parliament, and the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents which a ...

, an English Civil War institution that allowed Parliament to compound the estates of Royalists *

Compounding treason Compounding treason is an offence under the common law of England. It is committed by anyone who agrees for consideration to abstain from prosecuting the offender who has committed treason. It is still an offence in England and Wales, and in North ...

, an offence under the common law of England *

Compounding a felony Compounding a felony was an offence under the common law of England and was classified as a misdemeanour. It consisted of a prosecutor or victim of an offence accepting anything of value under an agreement not to prosecute, or to hamper the prose ...

, a previous offense under the common law of England

Linguistics

Compound (linguistics) In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs whe ...

, a word that consists of more than one radical element *

Compound sentence (linguistics) In grammar, sentence and clause structure, commonly known as sentence composition, is the classification of Sentence (linguistics), sentences based on the number and kind of clauses in their syntax, syntactic structure. Such division is an element ...

, a type of sentence made up of two or more independent clauses and no subordinate (dependent) clauses

Science, technology, and mathematics

Biology and medicine

Compounding In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. This may be done for me ...

, the mixing of drugs in pharmacy *

Compound fracture A bone fracture (abbreviated FRX or Fx, Fx, or #) is a medical condition in which there is a partial or complete break in the continuity of any bone in the body. In more severe cases, the bone may be broken into several fragments, known as a '' ...

, a complete fractures of bone where at least one fragment has damaged the skin, soft tissue or surrounding body cavity *

Compound leaf A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

, a type of leaf being divided into smaller leaflets

Chemistry and materials science

Chemical compound A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element ...

, combination of two or more elements *

Plastic compounding Compounding consists of preparing plastic formulations by mixing and/or blending polymers and plastic additive, additives in a molten state to achieve the desired characteristics. These blends are automatically dosed with fixed setpoints usually ...

, a method of preparing plastic formulations

Vehicles and engines

Compound engine A compound engine is an engine that has more than one stage for recovering energy from the same working fluid, with the exhaust from the first stage passing through the second stage, and in some cases then on to another subsequent stage or even st ...

, a steam engine in which steam is expanded through a series of two or three cylinders before exhaust *

Turbo-compound engine A turbo-compound engine is a reciprocating engine that employs a turbine to recover energy from the exhaust gases. Instead of using that energy to drive a turbocharger as found in many high-power aircraft engines, the energy is instead sent to ...

, an internal combustion engine where exhaust gases expand through power-turbines *

Compounding pressure Pressure compounding is the method in which pressure in a steam turbine is made to drop in a number of stages rather than in a single nozzle. This method of compounding is used in Rateau and Zoelly turbines. Construction The arrangement consists ...

, a method in which pressure in a steam turbine is made to drop in a number of stages

Other uses in science, technology, and mathematics

Compound bow In modern archery, a compound bow is a bow that uses a levering system, usually of cables and pulleys, to bend the limbs. In general, compound bows are widely used in target practice and hunting. The pulley/cam system grants the user a mechan ...

, a type of bow for archery *

Polyhedral compound In geometry, a polyhedral compound is a figure that is composed of several polyhedra sharing a common centre. They are the three-dimensional analogs of polygonal compounds such as the hexagram. The outer vertices of a compound can be connected ...

, a polyhedron composed of multiple polyhedra sharing the same centre

Other uses

Common names

Compound (music) In music, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless implied by the perfo ...

, an attribute of a time signature * Compound interest, in finance, unpaid interest that is added to the principal *

Compound chocolate Compound chocolate is a product made from a combination of cocoa, vegetable fat and sweeteners. It is used as a lower-cost alternative to true chocolate, as it uses less-expensive hard vegetable fats such as coconut oil or palm kernel oil in pl ...

, an inexpensive chocolate substitute that uses cocoa but excludes cocoa butter

Proper names

* ''The Compound'' (book), a 2008 young adult novel by S. A. Bodeen *

Compound (company) Compound (formerly known as Metamorphic Ventures) is a New York-based seed fund that invests in startup and early-stage technology companies. In March 2014, the company announced a new fund with close to $70 million. It also added Google vice pres ...

, a venture capital firm previously known as Metamorphic Ventures * Eisenhuth Horseless Vehicle Company, or Compound, a former US automobile manufacturer