12 uses
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1 —5 uses as in:
the metal contracted
Definition
when something gets shorter or smaller
- What he has done admitted no increase, it only left room for contraction or regulation.Preface (62% in)
- What he most affected was the Ionic, which has a peculiar sweetness, from its never using contractions, and from its custom of resolving the diphthongs into two syllables, so as to make the words open themselves with a more spreading and sonorous fluency.Preface (35% in)
- With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler AEolic, which often rejects its aspirate, or takes off its accent, and completed this variety by altering some letters with the licence of poetry.Preface (35% in)
- As far as that is seen in the main parts of the poem, such as the fable, manners, and sentiments, no translator can prejudice it but by wilful omissions or contractions.Preface (64% in)
- As for its being esteemed a close translation, I doubt not many have been led into that error by the shortness of it, which proceeds not from his following the original line by line, but from the contractions above mentioned.Preface (85% in)
There are no more uses of "contract" flagged with this meaning in The Iliad by Homer - (translated by: Pope).
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —7 uses
exact meaning not specified
- Such is the help thy arms to Ilion bring, And such the contract of the Phrygian king!Book 13 (47% in)
- Virgil, for want of so warm a genius, aided himself by taking in a more extensive subject, as well as a greater length of time, and contracting the design of both Homer's poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his.Preface (12% in)
- This is a field in which no succeeding poets could dispute with Homer, and whatever commendations have been allowed them on this head, are by no means for their invention in having enlarged his circle, but for their judgment in having contracted it.Preface (16% in)
- Those of the gods depended upon the powers and offices then believed to belong to them; and had contracted a weight and veneration from the rites and solemn devotions in which they were used: they were a sort of attributes with which it was a matter of religion to salute them on all occasions, and which it was an irreverence to omit.Preface (53% in)
- Great Ajax eyes them with incessant care, And in an orb contracts the crowded war, Close in their ranks commands to fight or fall, And stands the centre and the soul of all: Fix'd on the spot they war, and wounded, wound A sanguine torrent steeps the reeking ground: On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled, And, thickening round them, rise the hills of dead.Book 17 (49% in)
- AEneas his contracted body bends, And o'er him high the riven targe extends, Sees, through its parting plates, the upper air, And at his back perceives the quivering spear: A fate so near him, chills his soul with fright; And swims before his eyes the many-colour'd light.Book 20 (56% in)
- In vain, unskilful to the goal they strive, And short, or wide, the ungovern'd courser drive: While with sure skill, though with inferior steeds, The knowing racer to his end proceeds; Fix'd on the goal his eye foreruns the course, His hand unerring steers the steady horse, And now contracts, or now extends the rein, Observing still the foremost on the plain.Book 23 (39% in)
There are no more uses of "contract" in The Iliad by Homer - (translated by: Pope).
Typical Usage
(best examples)