English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Late Middle English contraccioun, contraxion (“spasm, contraction; constriction, shrinking; act of pressing together”),[1] from Old French contraction (modern French contraction), from Latin contractiōnem, the accusative singular of contractiō (“a drawing together, contraction; abridgement, shortening; dejection, despondency”), from contrahō (“to draw things together, assemble, collect, gather; to enter into a contract”)[2] + -tiō (suffix forming nouns relating to actions or their results); contrahō is derived from con- (prefix denoting a bringing together of objects) + trahō (“to drag, pull”) (probably from Proto-Indo-European *dʰregʰ- (“to drag, pull; to run”)). The English word is analysable as contract + -ion (suffix denoting actions or processes, or their results).
Pronunciation[edit]
contraction (countable and uncountable, plural contractions)
- 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).
Our contraction of debt in this quarter has reduced our ability to attract investors.
- (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.
- Synonyms: acquiring, catching
the contraction of malaria
2020 April 8, David Turner, “How Railway Staff were Conduits and Victims of a Pandemic”, in Rail, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 32:Railway workers were therefore a perfect subject for research, given the varied roles they undertook. If infection was greatest among the non-public-facing staff, it would suggest – given most worked outside – that contraction was caused by something found in the "atmosphere at large". If affliction was higher among the indoor and public-facing staff, it would suggest that human contact was the cause. And it was the latter point that was proven.
- 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.
- Antonyms: dilatation, dilation, expansion
- (archaic or obsolete) An abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.; an abstract, a summary; also (uncountable), brevity, conciseness.
- (abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.): Synonyms: condensation, epitome
- (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.
The country’s economic contraction was caused by high oil prices.
- (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.
- Hyponyms: apheresis, apocope, elision, syncope
In the English words didn’t, that’s, and wanna, the endings -n’t, -’s, and -a arose by contraction.
- (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”)
- (ring theory, of an ideal in the codomain of a ring homomorphism) The preimage of the given ideal under the given homomorphism.
- (orthography) In the English language: a shortened form of a word, often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a diacritical mark.
Don’t is a contraction of do not; and ’til is a contraction of until.
- (by extension) A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.
- (obsolete, rare) An act of collecting or gathering.
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
act of incurring debt; act of acquiring something (generally negative)
act of entering into a contract or agreement
— see contracting
process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease
(sometimes reversible) contracting or reduction in length, scope, size, or volume
- Afrikaans: verkleining
- Bulgarian: скъсяване (bg) n (skǎsjavane), свиване (bg) n (svivane)
- Burmese: ချုံ့ခြင်း (hkyum.hkrang:), ကျုံ့ခြင်း (kyum.hkrang:)
- Catalan: contracció (ca) f
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: 收縮/收缩 (zh) (shōusuō)
- Finnish: supistuminen
- French: contraction (fr) f
- Galician: please add this translation if you can
- German: Kontraktion (de), Abnahme (de) f, Abnehmen n, Minderung (de) f, Schrumpfen n, Schrumpfung m, Schwinden n, Schwindung (de) f, Verengung (de) f, Verkleinerung (de), Verkürzung (de) f, Zusammenziehung (de) f
- Hebrew: התכווצות f (hitkavtzut)
- Hungarian: összehúzás (hu), összehúzódás (hu)
- Indonesian: kontraksi (id)
- Italian: contrazione (it) f
- Japanese: 収縮 (ja) (しゅうしゅく, shūshuku)
- Korean: 단축 (ko) (danchuk)
- Kyrgyz: кыскаруу (ky) (kıskaruu)
- Latin: contractiō f
- Macedonian: скрату́вање n (skratúvanje)
- Norwegian: kontraksjon, forminskning
- Occitan: contraccion (oc) f
- Portuguese: contração (pt) f
- Romanian: contracție (ro) f
- Russian: сокраще́ние (ru) n (sokraščénije), сжа́тие (ru) n (sžátije)
- Spanish: contracción (es) f
- Swedish: kontraktion (sv), minskning (sv)
- Tagalog: daginsin
- Tajik: дардгирӣ (tg) (dardgirī)
- Thai: การหดตัว
- Uzbek: qisqarish (uz)
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stage of wound healing during which the wound edges are gradually pulled together
shortening of a muscle during its use
- Bulgarian: свиване (bg) n (svivane)
- Catalan: contracció (ca) f
- Finnish: lihassupistus, supistus (fi)
- French: contraction (fr) f
- Galician: please add this translation if you can
- German: Kontraktion (de) f, Kontraktur (de) f, Anspannung (de) f, Einschnürung f, Verengung (de) f, Verkürzung (de) f, Zusammenziehung (de) f, Zusammenziehen n, Zuziehung f
- Hebrew: התכווצות f (hitkavtzut)
- Hungarian: kontrakció (hu), izom-összehúzódás, összehúzódás (hu)
- Japanese: 攣縮 (れんしゅく, renshuku)
- Korean: 위축 (ko) (wichuk)
- Kurdish:
- Northern Kurdish: girjbûn (ku)
- Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
- Maori: kukutinga
- Norwegian: kontraksjon, sammentrekning
- Occitan: contraccion (oc) f
- Portuguese: contração (pt) f, crispação (pt) f
- Russian: сокраще́ние (ru) n (sokraščénije), сжа́тие (ru) n (sžátije)
- Spanish: contracción (es) f
- Swedish: kontraktion (sv), sammandragning
- Welsh: cyfangiad m
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strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth
period of economic decline or negative growth
process whereby one or more sounds of a free morpheme are reduced or lost
shortened form of a word, often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a diacritical mark
shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity
- Finnish: lyhennemerkki
- Galician: please add this translation if you can
- Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
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See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ “contracciǒun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- ^ Compare “contraction, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2023; “contraction, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old French contraction, borrowed from Latin contractiōnem, the accusative singular of contractiō (“a drawing together, contraction; abridgement, shortening; dejection, despondency”), from contrahō (“to draw things together, assemble, collect, gather; to enter into a contract”) + -tiō (suffix forming nouns relating to actions or their results); contrahō is derived from con- (prefix denoting a bringing together of objects) + trahō (“to drag, pull”) (probably from Proto-Indo-European *dʰregʰ- (“to drag, pull; to run”)).
Pronunciation[edit]
contraction f (plural contractions)
- contraction
Related terms[edit]
Further reading[edit]