Sample Sentences for
contract
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

contract as in:  legal contract

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
  • •
    A lot of people get into trouble by signing contracts they don't understand.
    contracts = written agreements that is enforceable by law
  • •
    The company will prepare your contract and send it to your lawyer for approval.  (source)
    contract = formal legal agreement
  • •
    In 1961, a Fairbanks company, Yutan Construction, won a contract from the new state of Alaska (statehood having been granted just two years earlier) to upgrade the trail, building it into a road on which trucks could haul ore from the mine year-round.  (source)
▲ show less (of above)
Show 10 more with 6 word variations
  • •
    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
  • •
    SHE WAS A NATURAL—BORN CYNIC WHO LIVED IN DEFIANCE OF CONTRACTS!  (source)
    CONTRACTS = written agreements that are enforceable by law
  • •
    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)
  • •
    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
  • •
    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)
    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."
  • •
    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)
    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.
  • •
    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
  • •
    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
  • •
    They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish—expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other's spaces liquidly.†  (source)
  • •
    Mr. Rushworth had no difficulty in procuring a divorce; and so ended a marriage contracted under such circumstances as to make any better end the effect of good luck not to be reckoned on.  (source)
    contracted = legally agreed to
▲ show less (of above)

contract as in:  contract the disease

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
  • •
    She contracted AIDS by sharing needles.
  • •
    Ordinarily you couldn't contract rabies unless you were bitten by an animal.  (source)
    contract = get (a disease)
  • •
    There are dust storms and tule fog and some people do contract Valley Fever.  (source)
▲ show less (of above)
Show 10 more with 3 word variations
  • •
    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)
  • •
    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)
  • •
    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
    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.
  • •
    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)
  • •
    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)
  • •
    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
  • •
    Here is a secret about my family: My sister contracted the deliria a several months before her scheduled procedure.  (source)
    contracted = got (a disease)
  • •
    Don't you contract diseases, not people?  (source)
    contract = get
  • •
    I contracted pleural pneumonia, in that day a killing disease.  (source)
    contracted = got (became ill with)
  • •
    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)
▲ show less (of above)

contract as in:  the metal contracted in the cold

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
  • •
    The cold made the aluminum rod contract more than the steel rod.
    contract = shorten
  • •
    I watch the muscles in his back expand and contract until I fall asleep.  (source)
    contract = pull tighter
  • •
    There was no question: the stegosaur's pupil was dilated, and did not contract when light shone on it.  (source)
    contract = get smaller
▲ show less (of above)
Show 10 more with 6 word variations
  • •
    Instead, the hat contracted, as though an invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly.  (source)
    contracted = pulled in
  • •
    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.
  • •
    Candy tried to smile, and the contractions continued.†  (source)
  • •
    This was far worse than the nothingness had been; while she was nothing there was no need to breathe, but now her lungs were squeezed together so that although she was dying for want of air there was no way for her lungs to expand and contract, to take in the air that she must have to stay alive.  (source)
    contract = get smaller
  • •
    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
  • •
    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)
  • •
    his legs contracted up, up into the seat,  (source)
    contracted = pulled back
  • •
    She'd chosen expansion over contraction.†  (source)
  • •
    Aunt Elizabeth feels for the contractions.†  (source)
  • •
    This was because the tendons had begun to shrivel and contract.  (source)
    contract = pull tighter
▲ show less (of above)

meaning too rare to warrant focus

Show 3 with this contextual meaning
  • •
    Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowels' wards.  (source)
    contracted = narrow and cramped
  • •
    Like that first line: 'I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand.'  (source)
    contracted = an old-fashioned way of saying met
  • •
    Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe;  (source)
    contracted = united
▲ show less (of above)
Show 1 more
•
Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty; Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there; makes marriage-vows As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow;  (source)
contraction = marriage
▲ show less (of above)