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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
compact disc
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And a compact disc changer is available, dealer installed, for $ 650.
▪ But this is not, thankfully, a compact disc with a theatrical agenda.
▪ It will also control lighting, curtains and the audio system with compact disc player.
▪ Of the nine works on this compact disc, only five were composed for trombone.
▪ One often felt assaulted, as if the volume had been turned up on a cheap compact disc player.
▪ Starting in 1993, the label plans to re-release all the Smiths albums on compact disc in chronological sequence.
▪ They stole a television, compact disc player, an amplifier and some speakers, worth a total of £900.
▪ Which all goes to show what can actually be achieved when an analogue master tape is lovingly transferred to compact disc.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
compact disc

compact disc \com"pact disc`\, compact disk \com"pact disk`\(k[o^]m"p[a^]kt d[i^]sk`), n. a disk-shaped optical data storage medium approximately 4-3/4 in. in diameter, which stores binary data as microscopic nonreflective holes or pits in an otherwise reflective surface, and is recorded and played back by rotation in an electronic device containing a laser. It is often referred to by its abbreviation CD. It is a type of optical data storage medium. Compact disks are used for recordings of music as well as of data for computer applications.

Syn: CD.

Wiktionary
compact disc

n. An optical disc used to store audio or other data.

WordNet
compact disc

n. a digitally encoded recording on an optical disk that is smaller than a phonograph record; played back by a laser [syn: compact disk, CD]

Wikipedia
Compact disc

Compact Disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format, co-developed by Philips and Sony. The format was originally developed to store and play only sound recordings but was later adapted for storage of data ( CD-ROM). Several other formats were further derived from these, including write-once audio and data storage ( CD-R), rewritable media ( CD-RW), Video Compact Disc ( VCD), Super Video Compact Disc ( SVCD), Photo CD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced Music CD. Audio CD players have been commercially available since October 1982, when the first commercially available CD player was released in Japan.

Standard CDs have a diameter of and can hold up to about 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or about 700 MiB of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from ; they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio, or delivering device drivers.

At the time of the technology's introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard drive, which would typically hold 10 MB. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much storage space as a thousand CDs, while their prices had plummeted to commodity level.

In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide. CDs are increasingly being replaced by other forms of digital storage and distribution, with the result that audio CD sales rates in the U.S. have dropped about 50% from their peak; however, they remain one of the primary distribution methods for the music industry. In 2014, revenues from digital music services matched those from physical format sales for the first time.

Usage examples of "compact disc".

Single Henredon sofa, no coffee table, single floor lamp, state of the art compact disc player, microwave and Cuisinart.

It looked like a suitcase containing two carousels from a compact disc player.

The new Stephen Bishop came out last Tuesday and at Tower Records yesterday I bought the compact disc, the cassette and the album because I wanted to own all three formats.

As late as 1997, it was still selling a sordid text-only compact disc which included a part of the encyclopaedia.

He was so eager to impress her that he once forged Peter Frampton's autograph on a compact disc.

Pelorat was holding his library-the one compact disc on which his lifetime of research into myths and legends were stored-and with it he retreated into his bedroom where he kept his small reader.

Pelorat was holding his librarythe one compact disc on which his lifetime of research into myths and legends were storedand with it he retreated into his bedroom where he kept his small reader.