Definition of "contraction"

Senses relating to becoming involved with or entering into, especially entering into a contract.

1. (generally) , an act of acquiring something (generally negative).  examples

2. (archaic) An act of entering into a contract or agreement; specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a betrothal.

3. (biology, medicine) The process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease.  quotations

   Quotations

   • 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.

     2020 April 8, David Turner, “How Railway Staff were Conduits and Victims of a Pandemic”, in Rail, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, page 32

Senses relating to pulling together or shortening.

1. A (sometimes reversible) contracting or reduction in length, scope, size, or volume; a narrowing, a shortening, a shrinking.

   1. (archaic or obsolete) An abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.; an abstract, a summary; also (uncountable), brevity, conciseness.

   2. (biology, medicine) A stage of wound healing during which the wound edges are gradually pulled together.

   3. (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.

   4. (economics) A period of economic decline or negative growth.  examples

   5. (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.  examples

   6. (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”)

   7. (orthography) In the English language: a shortened form of a word, often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a diacritical mark.  examples

   8. (by extension) A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.  examples

2. (obsolete, rare) An act of collecting or gathering.