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contract
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

contract as in:  legal contract

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    A lot of people get into trouble by signing contracts they don't understand.
    contracts = written agreements that is enforceable by law
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    The company will prepare your contract and send it to your lawyer for approval.  (source)
    contract = formal legal agreement
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    And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.  (source)
    contract = agreement
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Show 10 more with 6 word variations
  • •
    Walt has spent the past ten days in Fairbanks, doing contract work for NASA, developing an airborne radar system for search-and-rescue missions that will enable searchers to find the wreckage of a downed plane amid thousands of acres of densely forested country.  (source)
    contract = based upon a legal agreement (not an employee)
  • •
    They get kickbacks on government contracts from friends or the companies they award them to.  (source)
    contracts = agreements to purchase/sell
  • •
    The earth itself contracting with the cold.†  (source)
    contracting = making an agreement of payment for services that is enforceable by law
  • •
    Pasiphae was contracted in marriage.  (source)
    contracted = promised in an agreement
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    From whence it commeth to passe, that the Soveraign Power, which foreseeth the necessities and dangers of the Common-wealth, (finding the passage of mony to the publique Treasure obstructed, by the tenacity of the people,) whereas it ought to extend it selfe, to encounter, and prevent such dangers in their beginnings, contracteth it selfe as long as it can, and when it cannot longer, struggles with the people by strategems of Law, to obtain little summes, which not sufficing, he is fain at last violently to open the way for present supply, or Perish; and being put often to these extremities, at last reduceth the people to their due temper; or else the Common-wealth must perish.†  (source)
    contracteth = makes a legal agreement
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-eth" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She contracteth" in older English, today we say "She contracts."
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    The eventual recognition of the heroine's superior virtue, her loyalty through the most terrible trials, even uncontracted as she is, and the downfall of her rival, culminating in the longawaited clientage contract and ten minutes of triumphant singing and dancing, the last of eleven such interludes over four separate episodes.†  (source)
    uncontracted = without a formal agreement
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncontracted means not and reverses the meaning of contracted. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
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    Biosyn had already achieved some success, engineering a new, pale trout under contract to the Department of Fish and Game of the State of Idaho.  (source)
    contract = formal agreement
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    I thought she was going to spit in it, which was the only reason anybody in Maycomb held out his hand: it was a time-honored method of sealing oral contracts.  (source)
    contracts = agreements
  • •
    I really like that expression because in general, I think people don't give this contracting muscle credit for how much work it does.†  (source)
    contracting = making an agreement of payment for services that is enforceable by law
  • •
    S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down there and see that he done it—what did he do?  (source)
    contracted = made an agreement of payment for services that is enforceable by law
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contract as in:  contract the disease

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    She contracted AIDS by sharing needles.
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    Ordinarily you couldn't contract rabies unless you were bitten by an animal.  (source)
    contract = get (a disease)
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    There are dust storms and tule fog and some people do contract Valley Fever.  (source)
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Show 10 more with 3 word variations
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    I could tell she wanted me to ask her about something, but I couldn't tell what, because my stomach wouldn't shut up, which was forcing me deep inside a worry that I'd somehow contracted a parasitic infection.  (source)
    contracted = got (a disease)
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    We had to sit so close to other people there wasn't room to breathe, if you even wanted to, being in the position to contract every kind of a germ there was.  (source)
    contract = to get (of a disease)
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    From the moment of contraction, symptoms may develop over the course of one to four weeks, based on the strength of the patient's immune system.  (source)
    contraction = the time someone catches a disease or infection
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    If you fear that you or someone you know may have contracted deliria, please call the emergency line toll-free at 1-800-PREVENT to discuss immediate intake and treatment.  (source)
    contracted = caught or got -- especially in reference to a disease
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    We can't take a chance that she will contract another infection from any outside germs that might be brought into the hospital.  (source)
    contract = get (a disease)
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    From the moment of contraction, symptoms may develop over the course of one to four weeks, based on the strength of the patient's immune system.  (source)
    contraction = time catches a disease or infection
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    Besides that, our potatoes have contracted such strange diseases that one out of every two buckets of pommes de terre winds up in the garbage.  (source)
    contracted = got (a disease)
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    Don't you contract diseases, not people?  (source)
    contract = get
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    I contracted pleural pneumonia, in that day a killing disease.  (source)
    contracted = got (became ill with)
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    But he and the two other men in the apartment had a wonderful blowout, which lasted for five days, and as a result of which the industrious and unlucky one lost his job and the idle and lucky one got too sociable, and, despite his luck, contracted a social disease.  (source)
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contract as in:  the metal contracted

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  • •
    The cold made the aluminum rod contract more than the steel rod.
    contract = shorten
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    I watch the muscles in his back expand and contract until I fall asleep.  (source)
    contract = pull tighter
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    There was no question: the stegosaur's pupil was dilated, and did not contract when light shone on it.  (source)
    contract = get smaller
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Show 10 more with 6 word variations
  • •
    His face contracted in agony, and sweat streamed down his face.  (source)
    contracted = muscles pulled (shortened)
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    We were still ten kilometers from the village when my chronic backache spread to a deep, rock-hard contraction across my lower belly, and I understood with horror that I was in labor.  (source)
    contraction = tightening (shrinking) of muscles
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    Aunt Elizabeth feels for the contractions.†  (source)
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    Sure enough, the globe began to contract.  (source)
    contract = get smaller
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    But even as I utter the words, I feel my insides contracting with anxiety and guilt at the sight of her, and while I can't pull it up, I know some bad memory is associated with her.  (source)
    contracting = tightening
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    His face contracts slightly, a tiny shift I can barely make out in the dark, but in that second he looks so still and sad it almost takes my breath away, like he's a statue, or a different person.  (source)
    contracts = pulls tighter (muscles shorten)
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    his legs contracted up, up into the seat,  (source)
    contracted = pulled back
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    Now he avoided the contraction, speaking in the more formal style often used by those to whom English is a second tongue.†  (source)
    contraction = the act of getting shorter or smaller
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    Learning how to push the right buttons, how to switch smoothly from one level to another, how to make contractions.†  (source)
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    This was because the tendons had begun to shrivel and contract.  (source)
    contract = pull tighter
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rare meaning

Show 1 with this contextual meaning
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Like that first line: 'I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand.'  (source)
contracted = an old-fashioned way of saying met
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