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Contraction vs Distraction - What's the difference?

contraction | distraction |

As nouns the difference between contraction and distraction

is that contraction is a reversible reduction in size while distraction is something that distracts.

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 * *

    distraction

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Something that distracts.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1913, author=
    • , title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad , chapter=4 citation , passage=“… This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. I am sure, Lord Stranleigh, that he has been descanting on the distraction of the woods and the camp, or perhaps the metropolitan dissipation of Philadelphia, …”}}
  • The process of being distracted.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
    • , volume=189, issue=2, page=27, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= The tao of tech , passage=The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing",
  • Perturbation; disorder; disturbance; confusion.
  • * 1662 Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2):
    • It's true that the Copernican Systeme introduceth distraction in the universe of Aristotle.
  • Mental disorder; a deranged state of mind; insanity.
  • * Richard Baxter
    • if he speak the words of an oath in a strange language, thinking they signify something else, or if he spake in his sleep, or deliration, or distraction , it is no oath, and so not obligatory.

    References

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