Thanks, Rebel, for the Webster approach. I've been away for a day and didn't get to spell this out. Ol' Mr. Webster further describes "compress" as "to condense". Back to " condense ", it refers to changing of gases, to compress, to reduce in size or volume and pack into smaller space".
With all that being said, I feel that unless we are altering the physical volume of the powder compared to it's weight, we really are not compressing it. What we PROBABLY are doing is compacting the charge, and if some of it gets a little smashed in the process, so be it. Stick powders are probably the ones that fall under this characteristic more than the ball, spherical, or flake ones, due to the lesser amount of air voids between the individual particles in the non-stick ones.
Anyhow, using whichever term you wish, I'm sure we all understand what we are talking about--------??????