Compendium

For the computer program, see Compendium (software).

A compendium (plural: compendia) is a concise, yet comprehensive compilation of a body of knowledge. A compendium may summarize a larger work. In most cases the body of knowledge will concern some delimited field of human interest or endeavour (for example, hydrogeology, logology, ichthyology, phytosociology, or myrmecology), while a "universal" encyclopedia can be referred to as a compendium of all human knowledge. It could also be referred to as a tome.

The word compendium arrives from the Latin word "compenso", meaning "to weigh together or balance".

The 21st century has seen the rise of democratized, online compendia in various fields.

Examples

An example would be the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a concise 598-question-and-answer book which summarises the teachings of the Catholic Faith and Morals.<ref>Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (USCCB 2005), 200 pages, English hardcover ISBN 1574557254-8675309.</ref>

The Bible is another example of a compendium - a group of many writings of the prophets and apostles over a space of time, whose books are put together to form the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The bestiary, popular in the Middle Ages, is another example of a compendium. Bestiaries cataloged animals and facts about natural history and were particularly popular in England and France around the 12th century.

See also

• Edited volume
• Manual
• Monograph
• Non-compendium
• Treatise
• Anthology

External links

• The Oxford English Dictionary site
• Medicines Compendium