What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Contract vs Protract - What's the difference?

contract | protract |

As verbs the difference between contract and protract

is that contract is to draw together or nearer; to shorten, narrow, or lessen while protract is to draw out; to extend, especially in duration.

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 contracted; affianced; betrothed.

contract

English

(wikipedia 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

    protract

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To draw out; to extend, especially in duration.
  • *2010 , (Christopher Hitchens), ‘The Men Who Made England’, The Atlantic , Mar 2010:
  • *:Still, form these extraordinary pages you can learn that it's very bad to be burned alive on a windy day, because the breeze will keep flicking the flames away from you and thus protract the process.
  • To use a protractor.
  • (surveying) To draw to a scale; to lay down the lines and angles of, with scale and protractor; to plot.
  • To put off to a distant time; to delay; to defer.
    • to protract a decision or duty
    (Shakespeare)
  • To extend; to protrude.
    • A cat can protract and retract its claws.

    Synonyms

    * (to draw out) prolong

    Derived terms

    * protractile