Word.ws English Dictionary

contaction

contaction noun: an act of touching.

Noun

contaction (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) An act of touching.
    • For the act of laughter, which is evidenced by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely voluntary, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves, but, as it may be constrained by corporal contaction in any, and hath been enforced...1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC
    • For ſphærical bodies move by fives, and every globular figure placed upon a plane, in direct volutation, returns to the firſt point of contaction in the firſt touch, accounting by the Axes of the Diameters or Cardinall points of the four quarters thereof.1658, Thomas Browne, “The Garden of Cyrus. […]. Chapter III.”, in Hydriotaphia, Urne-buriall, […] Together with The Garden of Cyrus, […], London: […] Hen[ry] Brome […], →OCLC, page 141

Questions about contaction

What does contaction mean?
Contaction means an act of touching.
What part of speech is contaction?
Contaction is a noun.

Words near contaction in the dictionary

  1. contactee
  2. contactees
  3. contactin
  4. contacting
  5. contactins
  6. contaction
  7. contactisation
  8. contactisations
  9. contactive
  10. contactiveness
  11. contactization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contaction (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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