Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use contraction in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun

Contraction means an act of incurring debt; also (generally), an act of acquiring something (generally negative). Example: “Our contraction of debt in this quarter has reduced our ability to attract investors.”

Examples of contraction by meaning

nounAn 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.

nounThe process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease.

  • the contraction of malaria
  • 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".2020 April 8, David Turner, “How Railway Staff were Conduits and Victims of a Pandemic”, in Rail, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer...

nounA shortening of a muscle during its use; specifically, a strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles...

  • 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...

nounA period of economic decline or negative growth.

  • The country’s economic contraction was caused by high oil prices.

nounA process whereby one or more sounds of a free morpheme (a word) are reduced or lost, such that it becomes a bound...

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

nounIn the English language: a shortened form of a word, often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a...

  • Don’t is a contraction of do not; and ’til is a contraction of until.

More sentences with contraction

  • A pregnant woman during labor normally experiences a number of sharp contractions.From the entry sharp
  • Mutated contractions often form diminutive and pejorative terms, such as "Newfie" and "fundie".From the entry mutated contraction
  • Performing an edge contraction on an edge in a path graph results in a path graph with one fewer vertex.From the entry edge contraction
  • That flutter in your voice is a vocal tremor, caused by the involuntary contractions of muscles in the larynx, throat or other adjacent parts of the body.From the entry flutter
  • Chasing and fleeing, though, are not just sequences of muscle contractions—they are goal-directed.2018, Steven Pinker, “Chapter 2: Entro, Evo, Info”, in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Penguin…. From the entry cybernetics
  • Also, inhalants decrease the strength of contraction of the heart muscle.2018 November 15, Nina Avramova, “19-year-old dies after inhaling deodorant spray to get high”, in CNN. From the entry inhalant
  • In the heart, β-receptor stimulation increases heart rate and cardiac contraction, and excitation conduction in atrioventricular node.2016, Anne H. Child, Diagnosis and Management of Marfan Syndrome, page 51. From the entry β-blocker
  • Thus β-blocker therapy decreases heart rate, cardiac contraction and myocardial oxygen consumption.2016, Anne H. Child, Diagnosis and Management of Marfan Syndrome, page 51. From the entry β-blocker
  • The post-generator performs orthogonal operations on the target language, like contractions and apostrophations.2015 March, Siddhartha Ghosh, Aditi Ghotikar, and Soujanya Chaturvedula, “Natural Language Processing: A Machine Translation System for…. From the entry apostrophation
  • The introvert is everted by hydraulic pressure exerted by contraction of body muscles on the coelomic fluid.2009, Lynn Marguli, Michael J Chapman, Kingdoms and Domains: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth, →ISBN. From the entry introvert
  • The procedure, sometimes called amniotomy, involves rupturing the amniotic membranes to speed contractions.2007 October 30, Nicholas Bakalar, “Childbirth: Purposely Breaking Water Does Not Speed Delivery”, in New York Times. From the entry amniotomy
  • Sporge is a neologism coined by German software developer Tilman Hausherr; it's a contraction of "spammed forgery".1999 September 16, Daniel Rutter, “Gibbering clones the future of Usenet?”, in Australian IT. From the entry sporgery
  • Granitic rocks are microcracked by differential contraction during cooling of the magma.1996, E.M. Winkler, “Properties of marble as building veneer”, in International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining, volume 33, number 2…. From the entry microcrack
  • The contraction of gminy made it easier for centrally appointed county officials to interfere in local affairs.1995, Robert E[dward] Blobaum, “[Russian State, Polish Society] The Impact of Agrarian Reform”, in Rewolucja: Russian Poland, 1904–1907…. From the entry gmina
  • It is possible that the uterine contractions speed the sperm along.1982, Carole Offir, Carole Wade, Human sexuality,, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, page 454. From the entry speed
  • The second captain of the foretop outed himself in one muscular contraction.1960, J. E. Macdonnell, Don't Gimme the Ships, Melbourne: Horwitz Publications, page 131. From the entry out
  • The galvonic current causes a tonic contraction, and this is the most serviceable form.1911 June, The Medical Times, volume 39, page 186. From the entry galvonic
  • She sounded like someone who'd perfected the language through booklearning but hadn't yet learned the art of conversing with contractions.2020, Claire Eliza Bartlett, The Winter Duke, London: Titan Books, →ISBN, page 90. From the entry booklearning
  • Engagement in nonaccustomed physical activity results in delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) which is particularly evident after eccentric muscle contractions.2016, Susan Raatz, Douglas Bibus, Fish and Fish Oil in Health and Disease Prevention, page 126. From the entry nonaccustomed
  • In sigma-1 KO animals, a reduced afterhyperpolarization results in a higher firing frequency and a stronger muscle contraction.2015, Timur A. Mavlyutov et al., “Role of the Sigma-1 receptor in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)”, in Journal of pharmacological…. From the entry afterhyperpolarization
  • What's important to realize is that you can pendulate—swing back and forth—between these sensations of expansion and contraction.2012, Peter A. Levine, Healing Trauma. From the entry pendulate
  • The resulting contraction of the solar nebula caused most of its mass to be concentrated in the form of the protosun.2007, Gunter Faure, Teresa M. Mensing, Introduction to Planetary Science: The Geological Perspective, page 52. From the entry protosun
  • Labor contractions may begin within a few hours.2005, Roberta Pavy Ramont, Dolores Maldonado Niedringhaus, Mary Ann Towle, Comprehensive nursing care. From the entry amnihook
  • Here the breathing technique works with specific rhythms of nature, on expansion and contraction of this axiatonal line.2005, Michael Arluck Scheinbaum, David Getoff, Reduce Blood Pressure Naturally. From the entry axiatonal
  • However, vigorous contractions may occur at the same time in the caudad stomach and the upper part of the small intestine.2003, Leonard R. Johnson, Essential Medical Physiology, page 487. From the entry caudad
  • Now that I think of it, could somebody check to see that I am indeed the inventor of double contractions?2002 November 16, robert, “I just invented the "double contraction"!”, in misc.education.language.english (Usenet), retrieved 13 Jun 2022. From the entry I'mn't
  • The frequency of segmenting contractions is higher in the descending and sigmoid colon than in more orad areas.2001, Leonard R. Johnson, Gastrointestinal Physiology, page 63. From the entry orad
  • To prevent paradoxic loss of wrinkles with strong contraction, we partially prerelaxed the pericytes with SNP, a source of nitric oxide.1997, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. From the entry prerelax
  • Some contractions aren't legal, and sometimes you do not use a contraction in order to emphasize what you are saying.1991 July 19, Life..., “Data Contractions--So what?”, in rec.arts.startrek (Usenet), retrieved 13 Jun 2022. From the entry I'mn't
  • The term labor pains is being commonly used as a synonymum for the expulsive contractions of the uterine muscles.1967, Acta universitatis palackianae olomucensis, page 165. From the entry synonymum
  • The Achillean reflex is the contraction obtained in the gastrocnemii and solei by the percussion of the tendo Achillis.1901, The Medical Examiner and General Practitioner. From the entry Achillean
  • Without such practices, the natural tendency of AI-assisted work is not contraction but intensification, with implications for burnout, decision quality, and long-term sustainability.2026 February 9, Aruna Ranganathan, Xingqi Maggie Ye, “AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It”, in Harvard Business Review. From the entry intensification
  • For other Leptodirini, the contraction of the life cycle is less radical, being intermediate between this extreme and a epigean life cycle.2015 July 8, “Convergent Reduction of Ovariole Number Associated with Subterranean Life in Beetles”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry epigean

Meaning of contraction

  1. noun An act of incurring debt; also (generally), an act of acquiring something (generally negative).
  2. noun An act of entering into a contract or agreement; specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a betrothal.
  3. noun The process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease.

Full definition of contraction

Questions about contraction in a sentence

How do you use contraction in a sentence?
Contraction is used as a noun. For example: “Our contraction of debt in this quarter has reduced our ability to attract investors.”
What is a short sentence with contraction?
“the contraction of malaria”
What does contraction mean?
Contraction means an act of incurring debt; also (generally), an act of acquiring something (generally negative).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contraction (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use contraction in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/contraction. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.