Contract vs. Reduce — What's the Difference?

A contract is a legally binding document between at least two parties that defines and governs the rights and duties of the parties to an agreement. A contract is legally enforceable because it meets the requirements and approval of the law.

To bring down, as in extent, amount, or degree; diminish.

An agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law.

To gain control of; subject or conquer

The writing or document containing such an agreement.

To subject to destruction

The branch of law dealing with formal agreements between parties.

To bring to a specified undesirable state, as of weakness or helplessness

Marriage as a formal agreement; betrothal.

To compel to desperate acts

The last and highest bid of a suit in one hand in bridge.

To lower in rank or grade; demote.

The number of tricks thus bid.

To thicken or intensify the flavor of (a sauce, for example) by slow boiling.

Contract bridge.

To lower the price of

A paid assignment to murder someone

To decrease the viscosity of (paint, for example), as by adding a solvent.

To enter into by contract; establish or settle by formal agreement

To put in a simpler or more systematic form; simplify or codify

To acquire or incur

To turn into powder; pulverize.

To reduce in size by drawing together; shrink.

To decrease the valence of (an atom) by adding electrons.

To pull together; wrinkle.

To remove oxygen from (a compound).

(Grammar) To shorten (a word or words) by omitting or combining some of the letters or sounds, as do not to don't.

To add hydrogen to (a compound).

To enter into or make an agreement

To change to a metallic state by removing nonmetallic constituents; smelt.

To become reduced in size by or as if by being drawn together

(Mathematics) To simplify the form of (an expression, such as a fraction) without changing the value.

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.

(Medicine) To restore (a fractured or displaced body part) to a normal condition or position.

(legal) 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.

(Linguistics) To pronounce (a stressed vowel) as the unstressed version of that vowel or as schwa.

(legal) The document containing such an agreement.

To become diminished.

(legal) A part of legal studies dealing with laws and jurisdiction related to contracts.

To lose weight, as by dieting.

(informal) An order, usually given to a hired assassin, to kill someone.

(Biology) To undergo meiosis.

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

(transitive) To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower.

(obsolete) Contracted; affianced; betrothed.

(intransitive) To lose weight.

(obsolete) Not abstract; concrete.

(transitive) To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.

(ambitransitive) To draw together or nearer; to shorten, narrow, or lessen.

(transitive) To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.

(grammar) To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.

(transitive) To bring to an inferior state or condition.

(transitive) To enter into a contract with. en

To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.

(transitive) To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for.

To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.

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

To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.

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

To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.

(transitive) To gain or acquire (an illness).

To express the solution of a problem in terms of another (known) algorithm.

To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.

To convert a syllogism to a clearer or simpler form.

To betroth; to affiance.

To convert to written form. (Usage note: this verb almost always appears as "reduce to writing".)

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 perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.

To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.

To reform a line or column from (a square).

To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease.

To strike off the payroll.

To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for.

To annul by legal means.

To betroth; to affiance.

To translate (a book, document, etc.).

To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.

To bring or lead back to any former place or condition.

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 bring to any inferior state, with respect to rank, size, quantity, quality, value, etc.; to diminish; to lower; to degrade; to impair; as, to reduce a sergeant to the ranks; to reduce a drawing; to reduce expenses; to reduce the intensity of heat.

To make an agreement; to covenant; to agree; to bargain; as, to contract for carrying the mail.

To bring to terms; to humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture; as, to reduce a province or a fort.

Contracted; as, a contract verb.

To bring to a certain state or condition by grinding, pounding, kneading, rubbing, etc.; as, to reduce a substance to powder, or to a pasty mass; to reduce fruit, wood, or paper rags, to pulp.

Contracted; affianced; betrothed.

To bring into a certain order, arrangement, classification, etc.; to bring under rules or within certain limits of descriptions and terms adapted to use in computation; as, to reduce animals or vegetables to a class or classes; to reduce a series of observations in astronomy; to reduce language to rules.

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, a particular thing; a formal bargain; a compact; an interchange of legal rights.

To change, as numbers, from one denomination into another without altering their value, or from one denomination into others of the same value; as, to reduce pounds, shillings, and pence to pence, or to reduce pence to pounds; to reduce days and hours to minutes, or minutes to days and hours.

A formal writing which contains the agreement of parties, with the terms and conditions, and which serves as a proof of the obligation.

To add an electron to an atom or ion.

The act of formally betrothing a man and woman.

To restore to its proper place or condition, as a displaced organ or part; as, to reduce a dislocation, a fracture, or a hernia.

A binding agreement between two or more persons that is enforceable by law

Cut down on; make a reduction in;

(contract bridge) the highest bid becomes the contract setting the number of tricks that the bidder must make

Make less complex;

A variety of bridge in which the bidder receives points toward game only for the number of tricks he bid

Bring to humbler or weaker state or condition;

Enter into a contractual arrangement

Simplify the form of a mathematical equation of expression by substituting one term for another

Engage by written agreement;

Lower in grade or rank or force somebody into an undignified situation;

Squeeze or press together;

Be the essential element;

Become smaller or draw together;

Reduce in size; reduce physically;

Be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness;

Lessen and make more modest;

Make smaller;

Make smaller;

Compress or concentrate;

To remove oxygen from a compound, or cause to react with hydrogen or form a hydride, or to undergo an increase in the number of electrons

Make or become more narrow or restricted;

Narrow or limit;

Reduce in scope while retaining essential elements;

Put down by force or intimidation;

Undergo meiosis;

Reposition (a broken bone after surgery) back to its normal site

Reduce in scope while retaining essential elements;

Be cooked until very little liquid is left;

Cook until very little liquid is left;

Lessen the strength or flavor of a solution or mixture;

Take off weight