[{"word":"contractions","phonetics":[],"meanings":[{"partOfSpeech":"noun","definitions":[{"definition":"A reversible reduction in size.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[]},{"definition":"A period of economic decline or negative growth.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[],"example":"The country's economic contraction was caused by high oil prices."},{"definition":"A shortening of a muscle when it is used.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[]},{"definition":"A strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[]},{"definition":"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.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[],"example":"In English didn't, that's, and wanna, the endings -n't, -'s, and -a arose by contraction."},{"definition":"(English orthography) A word with omitted letters replaced by an apostrophe, usually resulting from the above process.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[],"example":"\"Don't\" is a contraction of \"do not.\""},{"definition":"A shorthand symbol indicating an omission for the purpose of brevity.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[]},{"definition":"The process of contracting a disease.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[],"example":"the contraction of malaria"},{"definition":"Syncope, the loss of sounds from within a word.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[]},{"definition":"The acquisition of something, generally negative.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[],"example":"Our contraction of debt in this quarter has reduced our ability to attract investors."},{"definition":"A distinct stage of wound healing, wherein the wound edges are gradually pulled together.","synonyms":[],"antonyms":[]}],"synonyms":[],"antonyms":["dilatation","expansion"]}],"license":{"name":"CC BY-SA 3.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0"},"sourceUrls":["https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contraction","https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contractions"]}]