in a general sense, a mutual consent of two or more parties, who voluntarily promise and oblige themselves to do something; pay a certain sum, or the like. All donations, exchanges, leases, &c., are so many different contracts.

CONTRACT is particularly used, in common law, for an agreement or covenant between two, with a lawful consideration or cause. As, if I sell my horse for money; or covenant, in consideration of 20l. to make you a lease of a farm; these are good contracts, because there is quid pro quo.

Usurious CONTRACT, is a contract to pay more interest for money than the laws allow. See Usury.

These contracts are said to be null which the law prohibits the making of; such are all contracts between persons incapable of contracting, as minors, religious, lunatics, wives without consent of their husbands, &c.

CONTRACT is also used for the instrument in writing, which serves as a proof of the consent granted, and the obligation passed between the parties.

Among the ancient Romans, contracts, and all voluntary acts, were written, either by the parties themselves, or by one of the witnesses, or by a domestic secretary of one of the parties, whom they called a notary, but who was no public person as among us.

The contract, when finished, was carried to the magistrate, who gave it a public authority by receiving it inter acta, into the number of acts under his jurisdiction; giving each of the parties a copy thereof, transcribed by his clerks or domestic registrars, and sealed with his seal. Which practice passed into France, where it obtained a long time.

CONTRACTILE force, that property or power inherent in certain bodies, whereby, when extended, they are enabled to draw themselves up again to their former dimensions.

in Physics, the diminishing the extent or dimensions of a body, or the causing its parts to approach nearer to each other; in which sense it stands opposed to dilatation or expansion.

CONTRACTION is frequently used, by anatomical writers, to express the shrinking up of a fibre, or an assemblage of fibres, when extended.

Convulsions and spasms proceed from a preternatural contraction of the fibres of the muscles of the part convulsed. On the contrary, paralytic disorders generally proceed from a too great laxness of the fibres of the parts affected; or from the want of that degree of contraction necessary to perform the natural motion or action of the part. In the first, therefore, the animal spirits are supposed to flow, either in too great a quantity, or irregularly; and, in the last, the animal spirits are either denied a free passage into the part affected, or the tension of the fibrilla is supposed insufficient to promote the circulation.

in Grammar, is the reducing of two syllables into one, as can't for cannot, shouldn't for shouldn't, &c.