different between pinch vs contract

English

Etymology

From Middle English pinchen, from Old French *pinchier, pincer (“to pinch”), from Vulgar Latin *pinci?re (“to puncture, pinch”), from possible merger of *puncti?re (“a puncture, sting”), from Latin puncti? (“a puncture, prick”) and *picc?re (“to strike, sting”), from Frankish *pikk?n, from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n? (“to pick, peck, prick”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Verb

pinch (third-person singular simple present pinches, present participle pinching, simple past and past participle pinched)

1. To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.

   The children were scolded for pinching each other.

   This shoe pinches my foot.

2. To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
3. To squeeze between two objects.
4. (slang, transitive) To steal, usually something inconsequential.

   Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
5. (slang, transitive) To arrest or capture.
6. (horticulture) To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
7. (nautical) To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
8. (hunting) To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
9. (obsolete, intransitive) To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)

   • 1788, Benjamin Franklin (attributed), Paper

     the wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare

10. To seize; to grip; to bite; said of animals.
11. (figuratively) To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.

    to be pinched for money

    • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

      want of room […] which pincheth the whole nation

    • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

      The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.

12. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
13. (obsolete) To complain or find fault.
    • 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":

      Therefore who so them accuse

      Of any double entencion,

      To speake, rowne, other to muse,

      To pinch at their condicion,

      All is but false collusion,

      I dare rightwell the sothe express,

      They have no better protection,

      But shrowd them vnder doubleness.

Derived terms

• pinch off
• pinch out
• pinch a loaf

Translations

Noun

pinch (plural pinches)

1. The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
2. A close compression of anything with the fingers.

   I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.

3. A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
4. An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:

     It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch.

5. A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
6. An organic herbal smoke additive.
7. (physics) A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament.
8. The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
   • 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:

     It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.

9. (slang) An arrest.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (pinchi)

Translations

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English, from Old French contract, from Latin contractum, past participle of contrahere (“to bring together, to bring about, to conclude a bargain”), from con- (“with, together”) + trahere (“to draw, to pull”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?n'tr?kt
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?nt?ækt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?k?nt?ækt/

Noun

contract (plural contracts)

1. 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.

   Synonyms: compact, pact
2. (law) 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.
3. (law) A part of legal studies dealing with laws and jurisdiction related to contracts.
4. (informal) An order, usually given to a hired assassin, to kill someone.

5. (bridge) The declarer's undertaking to win the number of tricks bid with a stated suit as trump.

Synonyms

• (part of legal studies): contract law

Hypernyms

• (agreement that is legally binding): agreement

Hyponyms

• (agreement that is legally binding): bailment

Derived terms

• contract of employment
• contractual
• fixed-term contract

Translations

Adjective

contract (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Contracted; affianced; betrothed.
2. (obsolete) Not abstract; concrete.

Etymology 2

From Middle English, from Middle French contracter, from Latin contractum, past participle of contrahere (“to bring together, to bring about, to conclude a bargain”), from con- (“with, together”) + trahere (“to draw, to pull”). The verb developed after the noun, and originally meant only "draw together"; the sense "make a contract with" developed later.

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?ntr?kt, IPA^(key): /k?n?t?ækt/

Verb

contract (third-person singular simple present contracts, present participle contracting, simple past and past participle contracted)

1. (transitive, intransitive) 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

   • 1835, William Wordsworth, The Armenian Lady's Love

     Years contracting to a moment.

   • 1675, Richard Allestree, The Government of the Tongue

     We see in all things how desuetude do's contract and narrow our faculties.

2. (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".

3. (transitive) To enter into a contract with. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
4. (transitive) To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for.

   • We have contracted an inviolable amitie, peace, and league with the aforesaid Queene.

   • 1721, John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials

     Many persons […] had contracted marriage within the degrees of consanguinity […] prohibited by law.

5. (intransitive) To make an agreement or contract; to covenant; to agree; to bargain.

   to contract for carrying the mail

6. (transitive) To bring on; to incur; to acquire.

   She contracted the habit of smoking in her teens.

   to contract a debt

   • 1717, Alexander Pope, Epistle to Mr. Jervas

     Each from each contract new strength and light.

   • c. 1703-1720, Jonathan Swift, An Essay on the Fates of Clergymen

     That kind of behaviour, which we contract by having too much conversation with persons of high station.

7. (transitive) 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 […]

8. To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.
9. To betroth; to affiance.

Synonyms

• (lessen): abate, decrease, lessen, reduce
• (shorten): shorten, shrink
• (gain or acquire (an illness)): catch, get

Antonyms

• (lessen): increase, expand
• (shorten): grow, lengthen

Translations

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch contract, from Old French contract, from Latin contractum, past participle of contrah? (“to bring together, to bring about, to conclude a bargain”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?n?tr?kt/
• Hyphenation: con?tract
• Rhymes: -?kt

Noun

contract n (plural contracten, diminutive contractje n)

1. contract

Synonyms

• overeenkomst

Derived terms

• arbeidscontract
• contractarbeider
• contractbreuk
• handelscontract
• huurcontract
• koopcontract

Related terms

• contracteren
• contractueel

Descendants

• Afrikaans: kontrak
• ? Indonesian: kontrak
• ? West Frisian: kontrakt

Romanian

Etymology

From French contrat, from Latin contractus.

Noun

contract n (plural contracte)

1. contract

Declension

Scots

Etymology

From English contract.

Noun

contract (plural contracts)

1. contract

Welsh

Etymology

From English contract.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?ntrakt/

Noun

contract m (plural contractau)

1. contract

   Synonym: cytundeb

Mutation

Further reading

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present) , “contract”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies