Home › Glossary › Letter C

Compression ratio

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A measure of how densely meaning, imagery, or emotion is packed into poetic language, reflecting the degree of linguistic condensation.

Detailed Definition
Compression ratio measures the degree to which a poem condenses semantic, emotional, or narrative content relative to its linguistic brevity; high compression ratios indicate maximal meaning per word, often achieved through metaphor, ellipsis, or syntactic density, demanding active reader interpretation.
Example
Example in poetry:
Compression ratio: Degree to which meaning is condensed—e.g., in haiku: “In the cicada’s cry / No sign can foretell / How soon it must die” (Buson), maximum meaning in minimal words.
Additional Notes
Compression ratio compares the density of meaning to line length—high ratio means more meaning per word; a metric for evaluating concision.
Also Known As
Condensation ratio compression measure density proportion compactness ratio
Skip to main content