Word.ws English Dictionary

contracting

contracting is the present participle and gerund of contract.

Noun

contracting (countable and uncountable, plural contractings)

  1. The act of something that contracts or shrinks; contraction.
    • the contractings of his muscles
  2. Work done on a contract basis.

Meaning of contract

Verb

contract (third-person singular simple present contracts, present participle contracting, simple past and past participle contracted)

  1. (ambitransitive) To draw together or nearer; to shorten, narrow, or lessen.
    • The snail’s body contracted into its shell.
  2. To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.
    • The word “cannot” is often contracted into “can’t”.
  3. (intransitive) To make an agreement or contract; to covenant.
    • The company contracted with the council to build 200 new houses.
  4. (transitive) To enter into a contract with (someone or something).
    • We have just contracted new pest control services.
  5. (archaic, transitive) To enter into (an agreement) with mutual obligations; to make (an arrangement).
    • We have contracted an inviolable amitie, peace, and league with the aforesaid Queene.1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, […], London: […] George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, […], →OCLC
  6. (transitive) To bring on; to incur; to acquire.
    • She contracted the habit of smoking in her teens.

See all 18 meanings of contract

Adjective

contracting (not comparable)

  1. Getting smaller; drawing itself together into a smaller area.

Forms of contracting

pluralcontractings

Words formed from contracting

Phrases with contracting

Questions about contracting

What does contracting mean?
Contracting means getting smaller; drawing itself together into a smaller area.
What is contracting the present participle and gerund of?
Contracting is the present participle and gerund of contract.
What part of speech is contracting?
Contracting can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near contracting in the dictionary

  1. contractile
  2. contractile vacuole
  3. contractile vacuoles
  4. contractilities
  5. contractility
  6. contracting
  7. contracting out
  8. contracting out of
  9. contractings
  10. contraction
  11. contractional

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contracting (page history and authors); contract (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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Cite this entry: “contracting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/contracting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.