The noun is pronounced /kɒntrækt/. The verb is pronounced /kəntrækt/.
( contracted)
Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English.
1.
A contract is a legal agreement, usually between two companies or between an employer and employee, which involves doing work for a stated sum of money.
The company won a prestigious contract for work on Europe’s tallest building...
He was given a seven-year contract with an annual salary of $150,000.
N-COUNT
2.
If you contract with someone to do something, you legally agree to do it for them or for them to do it for you. ( FORMAL )
You can contract with us to deliver your cargo...
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has already contracted to lease part of its collection to a museum in Japan.
VERB : V with n to-inf , V to-inf
3.
When something contracts or when something contracts it, it becomes smaller or shorter.
Blood is only expelled from the heart when it contracts...
New research shows that an excess of meat and salt can contract muscles.
VERB : V , V n
• con‧trac‧tion
(contractions)
...the contraction and expansion of blood vessels...
Foods and fluids are mixed in the stomach by its muscular contractions.
N-VAR
4.
When something such as an economy or market contracts , it becomes smaller.
The manufacturing economy contracted in October for the sixth consecutive month.
VERB : V
5.
If you contract a serious illness, you become ill with it. ( FORMAL )
He contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion...
Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer contracted by women.
VERB : no cont , V n , V-ed
6.
If you contract a marriage, alliance, or other relationship with someone, you arrange to have that relationship with them. ( FORMAL )
She contracted a formal marriage to a British ex-serviceman.
= enter into
VERB : V n
7.
If there is a contract on a person or on their life, someone has made an arrangement to have them killed. ( INFORMAL )
The convictions resulted in the local crime bosses putting a contract on him...
N-COUNT : usu N on n
8.
If you are under contract to someone, you have signed a contract agreeing to work for them, and for no-one else, during a fixed period of time.
The director wanted Olivia de Havilland, then under contract to Warner Brothers.
PHRASE : oft PHR to n