contribution
Americannoun
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the act of contributing.
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something contributed.
- Synonyms:
- benefaction, donation, gift
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an article, story, drawing, etc., furnished to a magazine or other publication.
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an impost or levy.
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Insurance. the method of distributing liability, in case of loss, among several insurers whose policies attach to the same risk.
noun
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the act of contributing
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something contributed, such as money or ideas
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an article, story, etc, contributed to a newspaper or other publication
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insurance a portion of the total liability incumbent on each of two or more companies for a risk with respect to which all of them have issued policies
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archaic a levy, esp towards the cost of a war
Other Word Forms
- contributional adjective
- noncontribution noun
- overcontribution noun
- precontribution noun
- supercontribution noun
Etymology
Origin of contribution
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English contribucio(u)n, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin contribūtiōn-, stem of contribūtiō “payment, distribution,” literally, “a bringing together,” equivalent to contribūt(us) “brought together” (past participle of contribuere; contribute ) + -iō -ion
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As of March 20, 14.8% of Fidelity IRAs have seen a contribution this year, up about 2 percentage points from the same period last year.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 7, 2026
When the Communications Services sector is included, with names like Alphabet and Meta Platforms, the overall contribution rises to 40%.
From Barron's • Apr. 7, 2026
That set a record for a candidate’s contribution in a state race at the time, but Whitman lost to Jerry Brown by nearly 13 percentage points.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 6, 2026
Her first major contribution to the field of anxiety and fear-based disorders was in the 1970s and ’80s, with a therapy called exposure and response prevention that she used to treat patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026
Had Mendel stopped his experiments here, he would already have made a major contribution to a theory of heredity.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
