contraction

An act of incurring debt; also (generally), an act of acquiring something (generally negative).

An act of entering into a contract or agreement; specifically, a contract of marriage; a contracting; also (obsolete), a betrothal.

The process of contracting or becoming infected with a disease.

An abridgement or shortening of writing, etc.; an abstract, a summary; also (uncountable), brevity, conciseness.

A stage of wound healing during which the wound edges are gradually pulled together.

A shortening of a muscle during its use; specifically, a strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth.

A period of economic decline or negative growth.

A process whereby one or more sounds of a free morpheme (a word) are reduced or lost, such that it becomes a bound morpheme (a clitic) that attaches phonologically to an adjacent word.

In the English language: a shortened form of a word, often with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe or a diacritical mark.

Synonym of syncope (“the elision or loss of a sound from the interior of a word, especially of a vowel sound with loss of a syllable”).