A compression technique includes storing respective fixed-size symbols for each of a plurality of words in a data block, e.g., a cache line, into a symbol portion of a compressed data block, e.g., a compressed cache line, where each of the symbols provides information about a corresponding one of the words in the data block. Up to a first plurality of data segments are stored in a data portion of the compressed data block, each data segment corresponds to a unique one of the symbols in the compressed data block and a unique one of the words in the cache line. Up to a second plurality of dictionary entries are stored in the data portion of the compressed cache line. The dictionary entries can correspond to multiple ones of the symbols.