Engagement vs. Contract — What's the Difference?

An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be fiancés (from the French), betrothed, intended, affianced, engaged to be married, or simply engaged.

The branch of law dealing with formal agreements between parties.

The action of engaging or the state of being engaged

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.

The condition of being in working position

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

A mutual promise to get married.

The writing or document containing such an agreement.

The period during which this promise is kept

Marriage as a formal agreement; betrothal.

A pledge or obligation

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

A promise or agreement to be at a particular place at a particular time

The number of tricks thus bid.

Employment, especially for a specified time

Contract bridge.

A specific, often limited, period of employment

A paid assignment to murder someone

A hostile encounter; a battle or skirmish.

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

(countable) An appointment, especially to speak or perform.

To acquire or incur

(uncountable) Connection or attachment.

To reduce in size by drawing together; shrink.

The feeling of being compelled, drawn in, connected to what is happening, interested in what will happen next.

To pull together; wrinkle.

The period of time when marriage is planned or promised.

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

In any situation of conflict, an actual instance of active hostilities.

To enter into or make an agreement

The point at which the fencers are close enough to join blades, or to make an effective attack during an encounter.

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

The act of engaging, pledging, enlisting, occupying, or entering into contest.

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.

The state of being engaged, pledged or occupied; specif., a pledge to take some one as husband or wife.

(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.

That which engages; engrossing occupation; employment of the attention; obligation by pledge, promise, or contract; an enterprise embarked in; as, his engagements prevented his acceptance of any office.

(legal) The document containing such an agreement.

An action; a fight; a battle.

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

The state of being in gear; as, one part of a clutch is brought into engagement with the other part.

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

A hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war;

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

A meeting arranged in advance;

(obsolete) Contracted; affianced; betrothed.

A mutual promise to marry

(obsolete) Not abstract; concrete.

The act of giving someone a job

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

Employment for performers or performing groups that lasts for a limited period of time;

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

Contact by fitting together;

(transitive) To enter into a contract with. en

The act of sharing in the activities of a group;

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

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

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

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

To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.

To betroth; to affiance.

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

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

The act of formally betrothing a man and woman.

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

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

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

Enter into a contractual arrangement

Engage by written agreement;

Squeeze or press together;

Become smaller or draw together;

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

Make smaller;

Compress or concentrate;

Make or become more narrow or restricted;

Reduce in scope while retaining essential elements;