You should give definitions a chance, because they point to a way to make your code even smaller. Consider that dictionary compression, like LZ77 and LZSS works by encoding redundancy using symbols that index into a table.
Even APL/J/K programs with repeated patterns in them are further compressible. Occurrences of any repeated string more than two bytes long can be replaced by a 16 bit symbol.
Speaking of which, why don't you just learn the data structure and algorithm of a compression program like gzip inside out? Then you can write compressed code in any language. Others can easily work with your code by uncompressing it and then compressing it again when their changes are applied. Or vice versa; you can work with other people's code by compressing it first, then doing your changes in the more convenient, ergonomic compressed format. Maybe some checkout/commit hooks can do that transparently.
Compression will ferret out gratuitous frivolities like 17 copies of remoteDatabaseConnectionHandle, and turn them into a convenient, tiny code.
Think of how much smaller it can be if you go beyond reducing tokens to character. You've now got Huffman and dictionary coding at your disposal, and possibly more.