1. To create a compressed archive (a "zip file") from one or more files using pkware's pkzip or a compatible archiver. Its use is spreading from ms-dos now that portable implementations of the algorithm have been written.

zip is also the name of a unix archiving utility compatible with pkzip. unzip is the corresponding de-archiver.

See also gzip, tar and feather.

2. zip drive.

[jargon file]