contracted

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con·tract

(kŏn′trăkt′)

a. An agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law.

b. The writing or document containing such an agreement.

2. The branch of law dealing with formal agreements between parties.

3. Marriage as a formal agreement; betrothal.

4. Games

a. The last and highest bid of a suit in one hand in bridge.

b. The number of tricks thus bid.

c. Contract bridge.

5. A paid assignment to murder someone: put out a contract on the mobster's life.

v. (kən-trăkt′, kŏn′trăkt′) con·tract·ed, con·tract·ing, con·tracts

v.tr.

1. To enter into by contract; establish or settle by formal agreement: contract a marriage.

2. To acquire or incur: contract obligations; contract a serious illness.

a. To reduce in size by drawing together; shrink.

b. To pull together; wrinkle.

4. Grammar To shorten (a word or words) by omitting or combining some of the letters or sounds, as do not to don't.

v.intr.

1. To enter into or make an agreement: contract for garbage collection.

2. To become reduced in size by or as if by being drawn together: The pupils of the patient's eyes contracted.

[Middle English, from Latin contractus, past participle of contrahere, to draw together, make a contract : com-, com- + trahere, to draw.]

con·tract′i·bil′i·ty n.

con·tract′i·ble adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Adj.

contracted - reduced in size or pulled together; "the contracted pupils of her eyes"

expanded - increased in extent or size or bulk or scope

Translations

contracted

adj → zusammengezogen; (Ling also) → verkürzt; brow → gerunzelt; (fig) → engstirnig

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

contracted

n. contraído-a; retenido-a; infectado-a.

References in classic literature ?

Denmark, a little contracted in territory, gave nevertheless

View in context

This was more terrible than the first; the same nervous movements were repeated, and the mouth contracted and turned purple."

View in context

Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or newly-coined, or lengthened, or contracted, or altered.

View in context

THE PURCHASER of a black servant was persuaded that the color of his skin arose from dirt contracted through the neglect of his former masters.