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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


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"Contract" Quotes from Famous Books



... Generosity, on a large and comprehensive scale, seems to dictate the making a signal example of this gentleman; but waving that, these are only the private motives inducing him to surrender, and do not enter into the contract of Colonel Clarke. I have the highest idea of those contracts which take place between nation and nation, at war, and would be the last on earth to do any thing in violation of them. I can find nothing in those books usually recurred to as testimonials of the laws and usages of nature and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of the slave trade in this year was followed by a number of captures by U.S. cruisers, giving rise to the old difficulty in regard to the disposition of the cargoes. The Act of March 3, 1819, which had long fallen into disuse, was revived, and a contract made with the Colonization Society to transport and maintain for a twelvemonth the recaptured Africans already on the Government's hands. The substitution of small, swift steamers for the craft of older days so increased the efficiency of the navy that captures were made in rapid succession. ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... was lost. Again Bragg withdrew. On New Year's Day, '63, Lincoln freed the slaves—and no rebel was more indignant than was Chadwick Buford. The Kentucky Unionists, in general, protested: the Confederates had broken the Constitution, they said; the Unionists were helping to maintain that contract and now the Federals had broken the Constitution, and their own high ground was swept from beneath their feet. They protested as bitterly as their foes, be it said, against the Federals breaking up political conventions with bayonets and against the ruin of innocent citizens ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Czecho-Slovaks from other countries admitted to be transferred into the Czecho-Slovak army or to contract a voluntary engagement with this army for the duration ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... that which is God's link in the chain? It does not seem as if the legal contract could change or strengthen my feelings materially, and while honoring the inviolable rite of marriage, which is God's law and society's safety, I know that nothing can more surely bind me to her, so that the spirit, the vital part of ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe


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