contraction
IPA: kʌntrˈækʃʌn
noun
- Senses relating to becoming involved with or entering into, especially entering into a contract.
- An act of incurring debt; also (generally), an act of acquiring something (generally negative).
- (archaic) An act of entering into a contract or agreement; specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a betrothal.
- (biology, medicine) The process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease.
- Senses relating to pulling together or shortening.
- A (sometimes reversible) contracting or reduction in length, scope, size, or volume; a narrowing, a shortening, a shrinking.
- (archaic or obsolete) An abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.; an abstract, a summary; also (uncountable), brevity, conciseness.
- (biology, medicine) A stage of wound healing during which the wound edges are gradually pulled together.
- (biology, medicine) A shortening of a muscle during its use; specifically, a strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth.
- (economics) A period of economic decline or negative growth.
- (linguistics) A process whereby one or more sounds of a free morpheme (a word) are reduced or lost, such that it becomes a bound morpheme (a clitic) that attaches phonologically to an adjacent word.
- (linguistics, phonology, prosody) Synonym of syncope (“the elision or loss of a sound from the interior of a word, especially of a vowel sound with loss of a syllable”)
- (orthography) In the English language: a shortened form of a word, often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a diacritical mark.
- (by extension) A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.
- (obsolete, rare) An act of collecting or gathering.
Advertisement
Examples of "contraction" in Sentences
- And now the idea of contraction is rearing its head.
- LongCat: Ah, so the contraction is inherently suspect.
- This causes the abrupt contraction of the muscle fibers.
- Shortening involves the contraction of the longitudinal muscle.
- An insincere smile only shows contraction of the zygomatic muscle.
- The higher the recruitment the stronger the muscle contraction will be.
- To be sure, the economic contraction is causing pain just about everywhere.
- A neck spasm is an involuntary contraction of the muscles in the neck region.
- The movement of body structures is accomplished by the contraction of muscles.
- So, I doubt that contraction is going to continue at this pace let alone drop to 1930 levels.
- In biology, galvanism is the contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an electric current.
- ÂÂThe contraction is short for "He has," which makes the "got" redundant, as "He has no fear" is perfectly acceptable.
- And the pace of GDP contraction is slowing and many private forecasters expect to see positive growth in the second half of this year.
- The ECB head said there was no trade-off between austerity and growth, explaining that it was impossible to avoid a short-term contraction as the previous growth levels in some countries were not sustainable.
- Herr Carlo Landberg (Proverbes et Dictons du Peuple Arabe, vol.i. of Syria, Leyden, E.J. Brill, 1883) explains layta for rayta (= raayta) by permutation of liquids and argues that the contraction is ancient (p. 42).
- "The latest economic releases suggest that the economy was back in contraction mode in the third quarter after enjoying two successive quarters of very modest growth," said Raj Badiani, analyst at IHS Global Insight.