CONTRACTION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Contraction

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/kəntrˈækʃən/ Listen

noun

Contraction n.

The act or process of contracting, shortening, or shrinking; the state of being contracted; as, contraction of the heart, of the pupil of the eye, or of a tendon; the contraction produced by cold.

(Math.) The process of shortening an operation.

The act of incurring or becoming subject to, as liabilities, obligation, debts, etc.; the process of becoming subject to; as, the contraction of a disease.

Something contracted or abbreviated, as a word or phrase; as, plenipo for plenipotentiary; crim. con. for criminal conversation, etc.

(Gram.) The shortening of a word, or of two words, by the omission of a letter or letters, or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one; as, ne'er for never; can't for can not; don't for do not; it's for it is.

A marriage contract. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Contraction'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Contraction" Quotes from Famous Books

... plane are applied at right angles to the axis of a bar so as to cause it to bend, they occasion a shortening of the longitudinal fibres on the concave side and an elongation of those on the convex side. Within the elastic limit the relative stretching and contraction of the fibres is directly[9] proportional to their distances from a plane intermediate between them—the neutral plane. (N{1} P in Fig. 15.) Thus the fibres half-way between the neutral plane ...

— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... demoralized the whole system. It is easy, gentlemen, to recognize in the symptoms of the face and body generally intense irritation of the stomach, an affection of the great sympathetic nerve, acute sensibility of the epigastric region, and contraction of the right and left hypochondriac. You have noticed, too, the large size and prominence of the liver. M. Bianchon has, besides, constantly watched the patient, and he tells us that digestion is ...

— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... moved? It could be only the effect of the wavering shadows. And yet I could not convince myself that it did not move. It did move. It came forward. One side of it did certainly come forward. A kind of universal cramp seized me—a contraction of every fibre of my body. The patch opened like a door—wider and wider; and from behind came a great helmet peeping. I was all one terror, but my nerves held out so far that I lay like a watching dog—watching for what horror would come next. The door opened ...

— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... in old cracks on the opposite slope, where ignition has ceased, shows that this fire has continued for a very considerable time, or that the same thing had occurred at a much earlier period. In the form of the adjacent hills I observed nothing peculiar, unless it be a contraction not very common of the lower parts of ravines. The geological structure is, as might be expected, more remarkable. Other summits of the range are porphyritic,** but the hills of Wingen present a variety of rocks, within ...

— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... joint must be perfectly made with fireclay cement or paste. The fireclay bricks, &c., must be selected with regard to the amount of indestructible silica in the clay, consistent with hardness and toughness. Homogeneity of material must be obtained, having regard to expansion and contraction. The same material used for the bricks, &c., worked into a paste, must be ...

— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

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