This prefix has two distinct meanings. First, it can mean ‘with’ or ‘together’, as in combine, compatriot, coexist, and cohere. But it was also used as an ‘intensifier’ to give the idea of ‘very, thoroughly’.
Using the meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’ are: collaborate, to work with : combat, literally, to strike with or against: compact, pressed together; compassion, that is, fellow feeling; compose, to put together or arrange; congregate, literally, to form a crowd together; and correspond, literally, to answer to, as when two stories correspond.
The intensifier use turns up in: compel, to push thoroughly, and so to force someone to do something; complete, totally full; commotion, extreme movement or intense uproar; and consume, literally, to take up completely.
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