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Contract vs Different - What's the difference?

contract | different |

As verbs the difference between contract and different

is that contract is (ambitransitive) to draw together or nearer; to shorten, narrow, or lessen while different is .

As a noun contract

is 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.

As an adjective contract

is (obsolete) contracted; affianced; betrothed.

contract

Etymology 1

From (etyl), from (etyl) contract, from (etyl) contractum, past participle of .

Noun

(en noun)
  • 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.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
  • , title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=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.}}
  • (legal) 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.
  • (legal) A part of legal studies dealing with laws and jurisdiction related to contracts.
  • (informal) An order, usually given to a hired assassin, to kill someone.
  • (bridge) The declarer's undertaking to win the number of tricks bid with a stated suit as trump.
  • Hypernyms
    * (agreement that is legally binding) agreement
    Hyponyms
    * (agreement that is legally binding) bailment
    Derived terms
    * contractual * fixed-term contract * contract of employment

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (obsolete) Contracted; affianced; betrothed.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • (obsolete) Not abstract; concrete.
  • * Robert Recorde, , 1557:
  • But now in eche kinde of these, there are certaine nombers named Ab?tracte'': and other called nombers ''Contracte .

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl), from (etyl) contracter, from (etyl) contractum, past participle of . the verb developed after the noun, and originally meant only "draw together"; the sense "make a contract with" developed later.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (ambitransitive) 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
  • * Wordsworth
  • Years contracting to a moment.
  • * Dr. H. More
  • In all things desuetude doth contract and narrow our faculties.
  • (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".
  • To enter into a contract with. (rfex)
  • To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for.
  • * Hakluyt
  • We have contracted an inviolable amity, peace, and league with the aforesaid queen.
  • * Strype
  • Many persons prohibited by law.
  • To make an agreement or contract; to covenant; to agree; to bargain.
  • to contract for carrying the mail
  • To bring on; to incur; to acquire.
  • She contracted the habit of smoking in her teens.
    to contract a debt
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Each from each contract new strength and light.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • Such behaviour we contract by having much conversed with persons of high stature.
  • To gain or acquire (an illness).
  • * 1999 , Davidson C. Umeh, Protect Your Life: A Health Handbook for Law Enforcement Professionals (page 69)
  • An officer contracted hepatitis B and died after handling the blood-soaked clothing of a homicide victim
  • To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Thou didst contract and purse thy brow.
  • To betroth; to affiance.
  • * Shakespeare
  • The truth is, she and I, long since contracted , / Are now so sure, that nothing can dissolve us.
    Synonyms
    * (lessen) abate, decrease, lessen, reduce * (shorten) shorten, shrink * catch, get
    Antonyms
    * (lessen) increase, expand * (shorten) grow, lengthen

    different

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not the same; exhibiting a difference.
  • *
  • * 1971 , William S. Burroughs, , page 6
  • Enter the American tourist. He thinks of himself as a good guy but when he looks in the mirror to shave this good guy he has to admit that "well, other people are different from me and I don't really like them." This makes him feel guilty toward other people.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author= Ian Sample
  • , volume=189, issue=6, page=34, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains , passage=Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits.  ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.}}
  • Various, assorted, diverse.
  • * 2006 , Delbert S. Elliott et al., Good Kids from Bad Neighborhoods: Successful Development in Social Context , Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521863575, page 19:
  • In any case, poor black respondents living in high-poverty neighborhoods are most likely to view their neighborhood as a single block or block group and to use this definition consistently when asked about different neighborhood characteristics and activities.
  • Distinct, separate; (used for emphasis after numbers and other determiners of quantity).
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Charles T. Ambrose
  • , title= Alzheimer’s Disease , volume=101, issue=3, page=200, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.}}
  • Unlike most others; unusual.
  • Usage notes

    * (not the same) Depending on dialect, time period, and register, the adjective may be construed with one of the prepositions (from), (to), and (than), or with the subordinating conjunction (than).
    Pleasure is different from'''/'''than'''/'''to''' happiness.''
    ''It's different '''than''' ''(or '''''from what'' )'' I expected.
    Of these, (term) is more common in formal registers than in informal ones, and more common in the US than elsewhere; (term) is more common in the US than elsewhere; and (term) is more common in the UK, in Australia, and in New Zealand than in the US. Style guides often advocate (term), by analogy with (term) rather than *(term) or *(term), and (term) and (term).

    Synonyms

    * distinct

    Antonyms

    * alike * identical * same * similar * undifferent

    Derived terms

    * different as chalk and cheese * different drummer * different ideal * different light * different strokes * horse of a different color * march to the beat of a different drum

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (mathematics) The different ideal.