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Declension vs Contraction - What's the difference?

declension | contraction |

As nouns the difference between declension and contraction

is that declension is (grammar): a way of categorizing nouns, pronouns, or adjectives according to the inflections they receive while contraction is a reversible reduction in size.

declension

English

Noun

(wikipedia declension) (en noun)
  • (grammar): A way of categorizing nouns, pronouns, or adjectives according to the inflections they receive.
    • In Latin, 'amicus' belongs to the second declension . Most second-declension nouns end in '-i' in the genitive singular and '-um' in the accusative singular.
  • (grammar): The act of declining a word; the act of listing the inflections of a noun, pronoun or adjective in order.

    • Hypernyms

    * inflection (inflexion)

    Coordinate terms

    * conjugation

    Derived terms

    * declensional

    Anagrams

    *

    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 * *