contract

Etymology 1

From Middle English, from Old French contract, from Latin contractum, past participle of contrahere (“to bring together, to bring about, to conclude a bargain”), from con- (“with, together”) + trahere (“to draw, to pull”).

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
   unwritten contract
   Marriage is a contract.
   British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far. 2013-08-10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
2. (law">law) An agreement which the law">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. (law) The document containing such an agreement.
4. (law">law) 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. (bridge) The declarer's undertaking to win the number of tricks bid with a stated suit as trump.

adj

1. (obsolete) Contracted; affianced; betrothed.
   But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 1
2. (obsolete) Not abstract; concrete.
   But now in eche kinde of these, there are certaine nombers named Abſtracte: and other called nombers Contracte. 1557, Robert Recorde, The Whetstone of Witte

Etymology 2

From Middle English, from Middle French contracter, from Latin contractum, past participle of contrahere (“to bring together, to bring about, to conclude a bargain”), from con- (“with, together”) + trahere (“to draw, to pull”). The verb developed after the noun, and originally meant only "draw together"; the sense "make a contract with" developed later.

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) 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
2. (grammar) 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. (transitive) To enter into a contract with.
4. (transitive) To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for.
   Many persons […] had contracted marriage within the degrees of consanguinity […] prohibited by law. 1721, John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials
5. (intransitive) To make an agreement or contract; to covenant; to agree; to bargain.
   to contract for carrying the mail
6. (transitive) To bring on; to incur; to acquire.
   She contracted the habit of smoking in her teens.
   to contract a debt
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]. 1950 January, “Notes and News: George Bradshaw's Grave”, in Railway Magazine, pages 61–62
   An officer contracted hepatitis B and died after handling the blood-soaked clothing of a homicide victim […] 1999, Davidson C. Umeh, Protect Your Life: A Health Handbook for Law Enforcement Professionals, page 69
8. To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.
9. To betroth; to affiance.