Wiktionary

contraction

English Edit

WOTD – 28 August 2023

Etymology Edit

PIE word
*ḱóm

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

Noun Edit

contraction (countable and uncountable, plural contractions)

  1. Senses relating to becoming involved with or entering into, especially entering into a contract.
    2. 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.
    3. (archaic) An act of entering into a contract or agreement; specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a betrothal.
    5. (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.
  2. Senses relating to pulling together or shortening.
    2. A (sometimes reversible) contracting or reduction in length, scope, size, or volume; a narrowing, a shortening, a shrinking.
      Antonyms: dilatation, dilation, expansion
      1. (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
      3. (biology, medicine) A stage of wound healing during which the wound edges are gradually pulled together.
      5. (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.
      7. (economics) A period of economic decline or negative growth.
        The country’s economic contraction was caused by high oil prices.
      9. (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.
      11. (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”)
      13. (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.
      15. (by extension) A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.
    3. (obsolete, rare) An act of collecting or gathering.

Derived terms Edit

Related terms Edit

Translations Edit

act of entering into a contract or agreement — see contracting
abridgement or shortening of writing, etc. — see abridgement,‎ summary
brevity, conciseness — see brevity,‎ conciseness
synonym of syncope — see syncope

See also Edit

References Edit

  1. ^ “contracciǒun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ 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

French Edit

Etymology Edit

PIE word
*ḱóm

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

Noun Edit

contraction f (plural contractions)

  1. contraction

Related terms Edit

Further reading Edit

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