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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Contraction \Con*trac"tion\, noun [L. contractio: cf. F. contraction.]
1. 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.
2. (Math.) The process of shortening an operation.
3. 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.
4. Something contracted or abbreviated, as a word or phrase; -- as, plenipo for plenipotentiary; crim. con. for criminal conversation, etc.
5. (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.
6. A marriage contract. [Obs.] --Shak.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
contraction
noun
1: (physiology) a shortening or tensing of a part or organ (especially of a muscle or muscle fiber) [syn: {muscular contraction}, {muscle contraction}]
2: the process or result of becoming smaller or pressed together; "the contraction of a gas on cooling" [syn: {compression}, {condensation}]
3: a word formed from two or more words by omitting or combining some sounds; "'won't' is a contraction of 'will not'"; "'o'clock' is a contraction of 'of the clock'"
4: the act of decreasing (something) in size or volume or quantity or scope [ant: {expansion}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
57 Moby Thesaurus words for "contraction": Speedwriting, abatement, abbreviation, abridgment, alleviation, apocope, aposiopesis, attenuation, brachygraphy, clipping, coarctation, constriction, crasis, cutting, dampening, damping, decrease, decrement, decrescence, deduction, deflation, depreciation, depression, diminishment, diminution, dying, dying off, elision, ellipsis, extenuation, fade-out, languishment, lessening, letup, lowering, miniaturization, mitigation, narrowing, phonography, pruning, reduction, relaxation, sagging, scaling down, shortening, shorthand, simplicity, stenography, stricture, subtraction, syncope, syneresis, tachygraphy, taper, tapering, truncation, weakening
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
contraction {reduction}
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Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |