Vocabulary : Contrabass to Contractibleness
Contrabass : Double bass; -- applied to any instrument of the same deep range as the stringed double bass; as, the contrabass ophicleide; the contrabass tuba or bombardon. ;; The lowest stringed instrument of the violin family.Contrabasso : The largest kind of bass viol. See Violone.
Contract : To draw together or nearer; to reduce to a less compass; to shorten, narrow, or lessen; as, to contract one's sphere of action. ;; To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit. ;; To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease. ;; To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for. ;; To betroth; to affiance. ;; To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one. ;; To be drawn together so as to be diminished in size or extent; to shrink; to be reduced in compass or in duration; as, iron contracts in cooling; a rope contracts when wet. ;; To make an agreement; to covenant; to agree; to bargain; as, to contract for carrying the mail. ;; Contracted; as, a contract verb. ;; Contracted; affianced; betrothed. ;; The agreement of two or more persons, upon a sufficient consideration or cause, to do, or to abstain from doing, some act; an agreement in which a party undertakes to do, or not to do,
Contract system : The sweating system. ;; The system of employing convicts by selling their labor (to be performed inside the prison) at a fixed price per day to contractors who are allowed to have agents in the prison to superintend the work.
Contract tablet : A clay tablet on which was inscribed a contract, for safe keeping. Such tablets were inclosed in an outer case (often called the envelope), on which was inscribed a duplicate of the inscription on the inclosed tablet.
