Contracted to Contrary
Contracted
(Con*tract"ed) a.
1. Drawn together; shrunken; wrinkled; narrow; as, a contracted brow; a contracted noun.
2. Narrow; illiberal; selfish; as, a contracted mind; contracted views.
3. Bargained for; betrothed; as, a contracted peace.
Inquire me out contracted bachelors.
Shak.
Contractedness
(Con*tract"ed*ness), n. The state of being contracted; narrowness; meanness; selfishness.
Contractibility
(Con*tract`i*bil"i*ty) n. Capability of being contracted; quality of being contractible; as, the
contractibility and dilatability of air. Arbuthnot.
Contractible
(Con*tract"i*ble) a. Capable of contraction.
Small air bladders distable and contractible.
Arbuthnot.
Contractibleness
(Con*tract"i*ble*ness), n. Contractibility.
Contractile
(Con*tract"ile) a. [Cf. F. contractile.] tending to contract; having the power or property of
contracting, or of shrinking into shorter or smaller dimensions; as, the contractile tissues.
The heart's contractile force.
H. Brooke.
Each cilium seems to be composed of contractile substance.
Hixley.
Contractile vacuole (Zoöl.), a pulsating cavity in the interior of a protozoan, supposed to be excretory
in function. There may be one, two, or more.
Contractility
(Con`trac*til"i*ty) n.
1. The quality or property by which bodies shrink or contract.
2. (Physiol.) The power possessed by the fibers of living muscle of contracting or shortening.
When subject to the will, as in the muscles of locomotion, such power is called voluntary contractility; when
not controlled by the will, as in the muscles of the heart, it is involuntary contractility.
Contraction
(Con*trac"tion) n. [L. contractio: cf. F. contraction.]
1. The act or process of contracting, shortening, or shrinking; the state of being contracted; as, contraction
of the heart, of the pupil of the eye, or of a tendon; the contraction produced by cold.
2. (Math.) The process of shortening an operation.
3. The act of incurring or becoming subject to, as liabilities, obligation, debts, etc.; the process of becoming
subject to; as, the contraction of a disease.
4. Something contracted or abbreviated, as a word or phrase; — as, plenipo for plenipotentiary; crim.
con. for criminal conversation, etc.
5. (Gram.) The shortening of a word, or of two words, by the omission of a letter or letters, or by reducing
two or more vowels or syllables to one; as, ne'er for never; can't for can not; don't for do not; it's for it
is.
