Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home 		English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Contract   /kˈɑntrˌækt/  /kəntrˈækt/   Listen
noun
Contract  n.  
1.
(Law) The agreement of two or more persons, upon a sufficient consideration or cause, to do, or to abstain from doing, some act; an agreement in which a party undertakes to do, or not to do, a particular thing; a formal bargain; a compact; an interchange of legal rights.
2.
A formal writing which contains the agreement of parties, with the terms and conditions, and which serves as a proof of the obligation.
3.
The act of formally betrothing a man and woman. "This is the the night of the contract."
Synonyms: Covenant; agreement; compact; stipulation; bargain; arrangement; obligation. See Covenant.


verb
Contract  v. t.  (past & past part. contracted; pres. part. contracting)  
1.
To draw together or nearer; to reduce to a less compass; to shorten, narrow, or lessen; as, to contract one's sphere of action. "In all things desuetude doth contract and narrow our faculties."
2.
To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit. "Thou didst contract and purse thy brow."
3.
To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease. "Each from each contract new strength and light." "Such behavior we contract by having much conversed with persons of high station."
4.
To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for. "We have contracted an inviolable amity, peace, and lague with the aforesaid queen." "Many persons... had contracted marriage within the degrees of consanguinity... prohibited by law."
5.
To betroth; to affiance. "The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure, that nothing can dissolve us."
6.
(Gram.) To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.
Synonyms: To shorten; abridge; epitomize; narrow; lessen; condense; reduce; confine; incur; assume.


Contract  v. i.  
1.
To be drawn together so as to be diminished in size or extent; to shrink; to be reduced in compass or in duration; as, iron contracts in cooling; a rope contracts when wet. "Years contracting to a moment."
2.
To make an agreement; to covenant; to agree; to bargain; as, to contract for carrying the mail.


adjective
Contract  adj.  Contracted; as, a contract verb.


Contract  adj.  Contracted; affianced; betrothed. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Contract" Quotes from Famous Books



... spleen and pancreas jammed out of place, out of shape, out of use; and that, if you were born so, humanity would dictate that you should pad liberally, to save beholders from suffering; but of malice aforethought so to contract yourselves is barbarism in the first degree. And all the while I am saying these homely things, I shall have ten thousand times more real regard and veneration for you than your venders of dainty compliments. Regard? Jenny, Lilly, Carry, Hetty, Fanny, and the rest of you, dearly beloved ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... quite so absurd as she seemed. The contractors' crime was not catalogued with an ugly name. It was fraud or breach of contract, and that of course made all ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... same presents as those which Louis XV had ordered for Maria Leszcynska, the splendors of the ceremonial were to be royal, the new Empress's train was arranged according to the same model, the itinerary of her journey was marked out as a royal progress. The civil contract was signed on the tenth; the religious ceremony occurred on the eleventh, as appointed; and then followed a banquet where Berthier was absolved from all the ceremonies considered obligatory upon one of his rank in the Hofburg. Three days later the new Empress ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... I, "to Mr. Simpson's office, and shall pay him handsomely for the papers I have sold. I then propose to contract with him for the New York and Boston daily papers, paying for six months in advance, to be delivered to you every morning at half-past five o'clock precisely. At six o'clock you will drop the bundle, carefully made up and ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... cases are on record where the half-breed child has been taken "outside" by his father to school, and through the years perhaps six or eight half-Eskimo kiddies have percolated the interior waterways south to some mission-school, Anglican or Roman. As a rule, the marriage-contract is "good for this season only," and the wife and children bid their quondam husband and father farewell, smiling at him with neither animosity nor reproach ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron


More quotes...


Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com