contract

American  

[kon-trakt, kuhn-trakt] / ˈkɒn trækt, kənˈtrækt /

noun

contracts plural

1. an agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified.

2. an agreement enforceable by law.

3. the written form of an agreement enforceable by law.

4. the division of law dealing with contracts.

5. Also called contract bridge.  a variety of bridge in which the side that wins the bid can earn toward game only that number of tricks named in the contract, additional points being credited above the line.

6. (in auction or contract bridge)

   1. a commitment by the declarer and their partner to take six tricks plus the number specified by the final bid made.

   2. the final bid that specifies the number of tricks to which players must commit.

   3. the number of tricks to which players are committed, plus six.

7. the formal agreement of marriage; betrothal.

8. Slang. an arrangement for a hired assassin to kill a specific person.

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adjective

1. under an agreement enforceable by law; governed or arranged by special legal agreement.

   As a contract carrier with us, you'll have access to more loads than with any other provider in North America.

verb (used with object)

contracts, present (3rd person singular) contracted, past participle, past contracting present participle

1. to draw together; make shorter, thinner, narrower, etc..

   In order to contract a muscle, the opposite muscle group has to be relaxed.

   Synonyms:

   shrink, shrivel, narrow, lessen, shorten, reduce

   Antonyms:

   expand

2. to shorten (a word, phrase, etc.) by combining or omitting some of its elements.

   Contracting “do not” yields “don't.”

3. to get or acquire, as by exposure to something contagious.

   I contracted malaria but didn't recognize the symptoms at first.

4. to incur, as a liability or obligation.

   He was very extravagant at college, and contracted many debts.

5. to settle or establish by agreement.

   Bismarck contracted an alliance with Austria to counteract Russian designs in Eastern Europe.

6. to assign (a job, work, project, etc.) by contract.

   The publisher contracted the artwork.

7. to enter into an agreement with.

   We contracted a freelancer to do the editing.

8. to enter into (friendship, acquaintance, etc.).

9. to betroth.

10. to wrinkle.

    to contract the brows.

verb (used without object)

contracts, present (3rd person singular) contracted, past participle, past contracting present participle

1. to become reduced in length, width, thickness, etc., by drawing together; become smaller.

   The pupils of his eyes contracted in the light.

2. to enter into an agreement.

   We contracted to have the books printed and bound by Willow Press.

verb phrase

1. contract out to hire an outside contractor to produce or do.

idioms

1. put out a contract on, to hire or attempt to hire an assassin to kill (someone).

   The mob put out a contract on the informer.

contract British  

verb

1. to make or become smaller, narrower, shorter, etc

   metals contract as the temperature is reduced

2. to enter into an agreement with (a person, company, etc) to deliver (goods or services) or to do (something) on mutually agreed and binding terms, often in writing

3. to draw or be drawn together; coalesce or cause to coalesce

4. (tr) to acquire, incur, or become affected by (a disease, liability, debt, etc)

5. (tr) to shorten (a word or phrase) by the omission of letters or syllables, usually indicated in writing by an apostrophe

6. phonetics to unite (two vowels) or (of two vowels) to be united within a word or at a word boundary so that a new long vowel or diphthong is formed

7. (tr) to wrinkle or draw together (the brow or a muscle)

8. (tr) to arrange (a marriage) for; betroth

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noun

1. a formal agreement between two or more parties

2. a document that states the terms of such an agreement

3. the branch of law treating of contracts

4. marriage considered as a formal agreement

5. See contract bridge

6. bridge

   1. (in the bidding sequence before play) the highest bid, which determines trumps and the number of tricks one side must try to make

   2. the number and suit of these tricks

7. slang

   1. a criminal agreement to kill a particular person in return for an agreed sum of money

   2. ( as modifier )

      a contract killing

contract Cultural  

1. A legally binding agreement between two or more parties.

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Synonym Usage

See agreement. Contract, compress, concentrate, condense imply retaining original content but reducing the amount of space occupied. Contract means to cause to draw more closely together: to contract a muscle. Compress suggests fusing to become smaller by means of fairly uniform external pressure: to compress gases into liquid form. Concentrate implies causing to gather around a point: to concentrate troops near an objective; to concentrate one's strength. Condense implies increasing the compactness, or thickening the consistency of a homogeneous mass: to condense milk. It is also used to refer to the reducing in length of a book or the like.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• contractee
  noun
• contractibility
  noun
• contractibleness
  noun
• postcontract
  noun
• overcontract
  verb (used with object)
• recontract
  verb (used with object)
• contractible
  adjective
• noncontract
  adjective
• contractibly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• contracts
  plural

Participles

• contracting
  present
• contracted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• contract
  simple
• contracts
  simple
• have contracted
  perfect
• has contracted
  perfect
• am contracting
  progressive
• are contracting
  progressive
• is contracting
  progressive
• have been contracting
  perfect progressive
• has been contracting
  perfect progressive

Past

• contracted
  simple
• had contracted
  perfect
• was contracting
  progressive
• were contracting
  progressive
• had been contracting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will contract
  simple
• will have contracted
  perfect
• will be contracting
  progressive
• will have been contracting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of contract

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English noun contract, contrait, from Old French, from Latin contractus “undertaking a transaction, agreement” (equivalent to contrac-, stem of contrahere “to draw in, bring together, enter into an agreement” + -tus verbal noun suffix); the verb is from Latin contractus, past participle of contrahere

Explanation

When you and someone else have agreed on something and that agreement is both binding and enforceable by law, you have a contract. When you rent an apartment, you and your future landlord sign a rental contract. You can also use the word in this sense as a verb meaning "to hire." Wouldn't you like to contract someone to clean your room for you? In other verbal uses of contract, place the accent on the second syllable — kun-TRAKT. If you contract a disease, you catch it, but only use this if it's something serious. You catch a cold, but contract malaria. Contract also means "shrink." When the economy contracts, consumers stop buying things, and people lose their jobs.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

contract contracts contracted contracting

There’s a big difference between a verbal agreement and a legally binding contract.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026

Under A Step to Freedom’s contract with the Department of Health Services, the nonprofit is obligated to provide residents with a minimum of three nutritious meals per day.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026

The west London side have joined Inter Milan in considering a move for the 32-year-old, who became a free agent when his City contract expired at the end of June.

From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026

Kalshi is asking regulators for permission to let users speculate on the price of gold, silver and platinum with a new kind of derivative contract that never expires.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Vasiljevic’s strategy of appeasement was to give him whatever he wanted, even though the item might not have been mentioned in the contract.

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady

The proposed Fury-Joshua fight has been more than a decade in the making, with contracts already signed for a contest expected later this year, although a venue has yet to be confirmed.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

A Step to Freedom declined requests by The Times to release minutes of any board meetings where contracts with Croom’s companies were discussed or approved.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026

While players like Rogers were deemed not ready for first-team football, others, including Palmer and Jadon Sancho, were offered contracts and squad roles but chose to continue their development elsewhere.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

Oracle has contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars to provide cloud-computing services to OpenAI and other AI developers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

In March of that year, the phrase “King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra, the gods who love their father” appeared on two separate contracts.

From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby

The company, based in Livingston, N.J., has borrowed a total of about $30 billion to fund both the 49 data centers it has online today as well as its future contracted deployments.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Cyclospora cayetanensis, often referred to as just Cyclospora, has caused an ongoing and widespread outbreak of cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness that’s typically contracted by eating or drinking feces-tainted fresh produce or water.

From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2026

In advance of “The Odyssey’s” release, Imax contracted 130 experienced projectionists and required each to attend an intensive, weeklong training program.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026

This gave them a more accurate way to trace how koala populations expanded, contracted and separated over thousands of years.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026

Sometimes the effort was grudging or minimal, but the vacant reaches in the human tale slowly contracted.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

None of those justifications appear to apply here, according to contracting experts and former staffers consulted by ProPublica.

From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2026

Manning's earlier research has explored whether digit ratio can provide information about alcohol consumption, outcomes after contracting COVID-19, and oxygen consumption in footballers.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026

“Box office is not really growing and cable networks are contracting, as we all know, with cord-cutting.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026

In other cases about the same leak, the U.S. argued that it couldn’t be sued because Littlejohn worked for contracting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and thus wasn’t an IRS employee.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026

Expanding and bursting outward, and contracting and forming inward, it was the rhythm of being—of breathing, of heartbeat, of day and night—and the rhythm of our bodies set off an echo in my mind.

From "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes

Related Words

• arrangement
• bargain
• bond
• commitment
• guarantee
• obligation
• pact
• pledge
• record
• settlement