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t or process of contracting, shortening, or shrinking; the state of being contracted; as, contraction of the heart, of the pupil of the eye, or of a tendion; the contraction produced by cold.

To make briefer; to shorten; to abridge; to reduce by contraction or omission, especially of words written or spoken. It is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off. Bacon.

The form to which a word or phrase is reduced by contraction and omission; a letter or letters, standing for a word or phrase of which they are a part; as, Gen. for Genesis; U.S.A. for United States of America.

A contraction for are not and am not; also used for is not. [Colloq. or llliterate speech]. See An't.

A contraction of amperometer or ampèremeter.

A contraction for are and am not; also used for is not; -- now usually written ain't. [Colloq. & illiterate speech.]

eath. Angina pectoris, a peculiarly painful disease, so named from a sense of suffocating contraction or tightening of the lower part of the chest; -- called also breast pang, spasm of the chest.

The contraction of a word by the omission of a letter or letters, which omission is marked by the character ['] placed where the letter or letters would have been; as, call'd for called.

Constriction or contraction of some natural passage, as in constipation from inflammation.

A contraction of art thou. [Obs.] Chaucer.

A disease, characterized by difficulty of breathing (due to a spasmodic contraction of the bronchi), recurring at intervals, accompanied with a wheezing sound, a sense of constriction in the chest, a cough, and expectoration.

A contraction of parts by applications; the action of an astringent substance on the animal economy. Dunglison.

bind fast; to constrict; to contract; to cause parts to draw together; to compress. Which contraction . . . astringeth the moistuBacon.

racting the parts of the body; that quality in medicines or other substances which causes contraction of the organic textures; as, the astringency of tannin.

A medicine or other substance that produces contraction in the soft organic textures, and checks discharges of blood, mucus, etc. External astringents are called styptics. Dunglison.

An instrument, utensil, or machine, which, by alternate expansion and contraction, or by rise and fall of the top, draws in air through a valve and expels it through a tube for various purposes, as blowing fires, ventilating mines, or filling the pipes of an organ with wind. Bellows camera, in photography, a form of ca…

ge, which is usually strengthened by prominences called teeth. The shell is closed by the contraction of two transverse muscles attached to the inner surface, as in the clam, -- or by one, as in the oyster. See Mollusca.

Contraction into few words; conciseness. Brevity is the soul of wit. Shak. This argument is stated by St. John with his usual elegant brevity and simplicity. Bp. Porteus.

ma venenosum), a native of tropical Africa. It is highly poisonous. It is used to produce contraction of the pupil of the eye; also in tetanus, neuralgia, and rheumatic diseases; -- called also ordeal bean, being used by the negroes in trials for witchcraft.

A colloquial contraction for can not.