contraction

A reversible reduction in size.

(economics) A period of economic decline or negative growth.

(biology) A shortening of a muscle during its use.

(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.

(English orthography) A word with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe, usually resulting from the above process.

A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.

(medicine) The process of contracting a disease.

(phonetics) Syncope, the loss of sounds from within a word.

The acquisition of something, generally negative.

(medicine) A distinct stage of wound healing, wherein the wound edges are gradually pulled together.