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contraction

Pronunciation: /kɔ̃.tʁak.sjɔ̃/

“contraction” is a French word. Its meaning in English:

noun

  1. contraction

In French

  1. Resserrement, par opposition à dilatation.
  2. Resserrement instantané d'un muscle.
  3. Contractions importantes des muscles utérins avant et pendant l’accouchement.
  4. Réduction ou réunion de deux voyelles, de deux syllabes en une seule.
  5. Réduction de la graphie d’un mot en supprimant des lettres à l’intérieur de celui-ci, en conservant une ou plusieurs lettres initiales et une ou plusieurs lettres finales.
  6. Diminution du PIB sur une période définie.

Etymology

PIE word *ḱóm From Old French contraction, borrowed from Latin contractiōnem, the accusative singular of contractiō (“a drawing together, contraction; abridgement, shortening; dejection, despondency”), from contrahō (“to draw things together, assemble, collect, gather; to enter into a contract”) + -tiō (suffix forming nouns relating to actions or their results); contrahō is derived from con-…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Definitions in French are from the French Wiktionary, under the same licence.