contract

noun

1. 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.

   “sign a contract”

   “write up a contract”

   “read a contract”

   “countersign a contract”

   “legally-binding contract”

2. 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 do something in the future. A contract is thus executory rather than executed.
3. The document containing such an agreement.
4. A part of legal studies dealing with laws and jurisdiction related to contracts.
5. (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.”

6. The declarer's undertaking to win the number of tricks bid with a stated suit as trump.

adj

1. (not-comparable, obsolete)Contracted; affianced; betrothed.

   “But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel”

2. (not-comparable, obsolete)Not abstract; concrete.

   “But now in eche kinde of these, there are certaine nombers named Abſtracte: and other called nombers Contracte.”

verb

1. (ambitransitive)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”

   “We ſee in all things how deſuetude do's contract and narrow our faculties, ſo that we may apprehend only thoſe things wherein we are converſant.”

   “Mutual was the sudden transport; / Breathless questions followed fast, / Years contracting to a moment, / Each word greedier than the last; […]”

2. 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”.”

3. (intransitive)To make an agreement or contract; to covenant.

   “The company contracted with the council to build 200 new houses.”

4. (transitive)To enter into a contract with (someone or something).

   “We have just contracted new pest control services.”

5. (archaic, transitive)To enter into (an agreement) with mutual obligations; to make (an arrangement).

   “We have contracted an inviolable amitie, peace, and league with the aforesaid Queene.”

   “Many persons […] had contracted marriage within the degrees of consanguinity […] prohibited by law.”

6. (transitive)To bring on; to incur; to acquire.

   “She contracted the habit of smoking in her teens.”

   “to contract a debt”

   “Smit with the love of Siſter-arts we came, / And met congenial, mingling flame with flame; / Like friendly colours found our arts unite, / Each from each contract new ſtrength and light.”

   “This talent of discretion, […] is no where so serviceable as to the clergy, to whose preferment nothing is so fatal as the character of wit, politeness in reading or manners, or that kind of behaviour, which we contract by having too much conversation with persons of high station and eminency; […]”

   “A love like mine, Sir, I feel, is contracted once and for ever.”

7. (transitive)To gain or acquire (an illness).

   “At that time, the city [Christiania, now Oslo] was in the grip of a cholera epidemic, and victims were dying at the rate of 60 a day. Bradshaw contracted the disease, and died on September 6 [1853].”

   “An officer contracted hepatitis B and died after handling the blood-soaked clothing of a homicide victim […]”

8. To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.

   “And didſt contract, and purſe thy brow together, / As if thou then hadſt ſhut vp in thy braine, / Some horrible counſell: […]”

9. To betroth; to affiance.

   “The truth is, ſhe and I (long ſince contracted) / Are now ſo ſure that nothing can diſſolve vs: […]”