contraction

noun14

1. •
   A (sometimes reversible) contracting or reduction in length, scope, size, or volume; a narrowing, a shortening, a shrinking.
2. •
   A stage of wound healing during which the wound edges are gradually pulled together.
3. •
   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. •
   A period of economic decline or negative growth.

   • The country’s economic contraction was caused by high oil prices.
5. •
   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.

   • In the English words didn’t, that’s, and wanna, the endings -n’t, -’s, and -a arose by contraction.
6. •
   In the English language: a shortened form of a word, often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a diacritical mark.

   • Don’t is a contraction of do not; and ’til is a contraction of until.
7. •
   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”).
8. •
   An act of incurring debt; also (generally), an act of acquiring something (generally negative).

   • Our contraction of debt in this quarter has reduced our ability to attract investors.
9. •
   The process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease.
10. •
    A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.
11. •
    The preimage of the given ideal under the given homomorphism.
12. •
    (no longer used) An abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.; an abstract, a summary; also (uncountable), brevity, conciseness.
13. •
    (no longer used) An act of entering into a contract or agreement; specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a betrothal.
14. •
    (no longer used, rare) An act of collecting or gathering.