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Contraction vs Collapse - What's the difference?

contraction | collapse |

As nouns the difference between contraction and collapse

is that contraction is a reversible reduction in size while collapse is the act of collapsing.

As a verb collapse is

to fall down suddenly; to cave in.

contraction

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A reversible reduction in size.
  • (economics) A period of economic decline or negative growth.
    • The country's economic contraction was caused by high oil prices.
  • (biology) A shortening of a muscle when it is used.
  • (medicine) A strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth.
  • (linguistics) A process whereby one or more sounds of a free morpheme (a word) are lost or reduced, such that it becomes a bound morpheme (a clitic) that attaches phonologically to an adjacent word.
    • In English ''didn't'', ''that's'', and ''wanna'', the endings ''-n't'', ''-'s'', and ''-a'' arose by contraction .
  • (English orthography) A word with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe, usually resulting from the above process.
    • "Don't" is a contraction of "do not."
  • (medicine) Contracting a disease.
    • The contraction of AIDS from toilet seats is extremely rare.
  • (phonetics) Syncope, the loss of sounds from within a word.
  • The acquisition of something, generally negative.
    • Our contraction of debt in this quarter has reduced our ability to attract investors.
  • (medicine) A distinct stage of wound healing, wherein the wound edges are gradually pulled together.

    • Antonyms

    * expansion * dilatation

    Derived terms

    * contractional * contractionary * hypercontraction * supercontraction

    Related terms

    * contract * contractation * contractive

    See also

    * omission * *

    collapse

    English

    (wikipedia collapse)

    Verb

    (collaps)
  • To fall down suddenly; to cave in
  • * Maunder
    • A balloon collapses when the gas escapes from it.
  • To cease to function due to a sudden breakdown; to fail suddenly and completely
    • Pyramid schemes tend to generate profits for a while and then collapse .
  • To fold compactly
  • (cricket) For several batsmen to get out in quick succession
  • To cause something to collapse.
    • Hurry up and collapse the tent so we can get moving.
  • To pass out and fall to the floor or ground, as from exhaustion or other illness; to faint
    • The exhausted singer collapsed onstage and had to be taken to the hospital.

    Derived terms

    * collapsible

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of collapsing
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=April 21 , author=Jonathan Jurejko , title=Newcastle 3-0 Stoke , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=The top six are assured of continental competition and after making a statement of intent against Stoke, it would take a dramatic collapse for Newcastle to surrender their place.}}
  • Constant function, one-valued function (in automata theory) (in particular application causing a reset)

    • Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs ----