Associations to the word «Contraction»

CONTRACTION, noun. A reversible reduction in size.

CONTRACTION, noun. (economics) A period of economic decline or negative growth.

CONTRACTION, noun. (biology) A shortening of a muscle when it is used.

CONTRACTION, noun. (medicine) A strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth.

CONTRACTION, noun. (linguistics) A process whereby one or more sounds of a free morpheme (a word) are lost or reduced, such that it becomes a bound morpheme (a clitic) that attaches phonologically to an adjacent word.

CONTRACTION, noun. (English orthography) A word with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe, usually resulting from the above process.

CONTRACTION, noun. (medicine) Contracting a disease.

CONTRACTION, noun. (phonetics) Syncope, the loss of sounds from within a word.

CONTRACTION, noun. The acquisition of something, generally negative.

CONTRACTION, noun. (medicine) A distinct stage of wound healing, wherein the wound edges are gradually pulled together.

CONTRACTION, noun. (physiology) a shortening or tensing of a part or organ (especially of a muscle or muscle fiber).

CONTRACTION, noun. The process or result of becoming smaller or pressed together; "the contraction of a gas on cooling".

CONTRACTION, noun. A word formed from two or more words by omitting or combining some sounds; "`won't' is a contraction of `will not'"; "`o'clock' is a contraction of `of the clock'".

CONTRACTION, noun. The act of decreasing (something) in size or volume or quantity or scope.