contraction

Noun

contraction (countable and uncountable, plural contractions)

1. 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.
2. (archaic) An act of entering into a contract or agreement; specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a betrothal.
3. The process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease.
   • the contraction of malaria
   • 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...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

   Synonyms:

   acquiring, catching

4. (archaic, obsolete) An abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.; an abstract, a summary; also (uncountable), brevity, conciseness.

   Synonyms:

   condensation, epitome

   Antonyms:

   dilatation, dilation, expansion

5. A stage of wound healing during which the wound edges are gradually pulled together.

   Antonyms:

   dilatation, dilation, expansion

6. A shortening of a muscle during its use; specifically, a strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth.
   • Though occasionally a “flatliner” can be revived with a defib, it is most commonly used to change the uncoordinated contractions of the heart (fibrillation) into a normal sinus rhythm—that is, to defibrillate the heart.2011, Laurence Street, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering Technology, second edition (hardcover), Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 125

   Antonyms:

   dilatation, dilation, expansion

7. A period of economic decline or negative growth.
   • The country’s economic contraction was caused by high oil prices.

   Antonyms:

   dilatation, dilation, expansion

8. 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.
   • In the English words didn’t, that’s, and wanna, the endings -n’t, -’s, and -a arose by contraction.

   Antonyms:

   dilatation, dilation, expansion

9. 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.
   • You would not use "it's" in this case / As a possessive (No, no, no) / It's a contraction (Yeah, ye)2014, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Word Crimes”

   Antonyms:

   dilatation, dilation, expansion

10. 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”).

    Synonyms:

    syncope

    Antonyms:

    dilatation, dilation, expansion

11. (ring theory) The preimage of the given ideal under the given homomorphism.

    Antonyms:

    dilatation, dilation, expansion

12. (broadly) A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.

    Antonyms:

    dilatation, dilation, expansion

13. (obsolete, rare) An act of collecting or gathering.