contract.
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.
Meaning & usage
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
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. A period of work agreed to under a temporary contract.
He worked a six-month contract on an oil rig.
An agreement which the 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.
The document containing such an agreement.
A part of legal studies dealing with laws and jurisdiction related to contracts.
An order, usually given to a hired assassin, to kill someone.
The mafia boss put a contract out on the man who betrayed him.
The declarer's undertaking to win the number of tricks bid with a stated suit as trump.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English, from Old French contract, from Latin contractus (noun), from contrahere (“to bring together, to bring about, to conclude a bargain”) [from con- (“with, together”) + trahere (“to draw, to pull”)] + -tus (suffix forming nouns from verbs).
Contracted; affianced; betrothed.
Not abstract; concrete.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English, from Old French contract, from Latin contractus (noun), from contrahere (“to bring together, to bring about, to conclude a bargain”) [from con- (“with, together”) + trahere (“to draw, to pull”)] + -tus (suffix forming nouns from verbs).
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
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”.
To make an agreement or contract; to covenant.
The company contracted with the council to build 200 new houses.
To enter into a contract with (someone or something).
We have just contracted new pest control services.
To enter into (an agreement) with mutual obligations; to make (an arrangement).
To bring on; to incur; to acquire.
She contracted the habit of smoking in her teens.
to contract a debt
To gain or acquire (an illness).
To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.
To betroth; to affiance.
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.