| contract | |
| 1. n. An agreement between two or more parties, to perform a specific job or work order, often temporary or of fixed duration and usually governed by a written agreement. | |
| Marriage is a contract. | |
| 2. n. (legal) An agreement which the law will enforce in some way. A legally binding contract must contain at least one promise, i.e., a commitment or offer, by an offeror to and accepted by an offeree to d | |
| 3. n. (legal) A part of legal studies dealing with laws and jurisdiction related to contracts. | |
| 4. n. (informal) An order, usually given to a hired assassin, to kill someone. | |
| The mafia boss put a contract out on the man who betrayed him. | |
| 5. n. (bridge) The declarer's undertaking to win the number of tricks bid with a stated suit as trump. | |
| 6. adj. (obsolete) Contracted; affianced; betrothed. | |
| 7. adj. (obsolete) Not abstract; concrete. | |
| 8. v. To draw together or nearer; to shorten, narrow, or lessen. | |
| The snail's body contracted into its shell. | |
| to contract one's sphere of action | |
| 9. v. (grammar) To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one. | |
| The word "cannot" is often contracted into "can't". | |
| 10. v. To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for. | |
| 11. v. (intransitive) To make an agreement or contract; to covenant; to agree; to bargain. | |
| to contract for carrying the mail | |
| 12. v. To bring on; to incur; to acquire. | |
| She contracted the habit of smoking in her teens. | |
| to contract a debt | |
| 13. v. To gain or acquire (an illness). | |
| 14. v. To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit. | |
| 15. v. To betroth; to affiance. | |
