Adjacent Words

Contact definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CONTACT, n. [L., to touch. See Touch.] A touching; touch; close union or juncture of bodies. Two bodies come in contact, when they meet without any sensible intervening space; the parts that touch are called the points of contact.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: close interaction; "they kept in daily contact"; "they claimed that they had been in contact with extraterrestrial beings"
2: the act of touching physically; "her fingers came in contact with the light switch" [syn: contact, physical contact]
3: the state or condition of touching or of being in immediate proximity; "litmus paper turns red on contact with an acid"
4: the physical coming together of two or more things; "contact with the pier scraped paint from the hull" [syn: contact, impinging, striking]
5: a person who is in a position to give you special assistance; "he used his business contacts to get an introduction to the governor" [syn: contact, middleman]
6: a channel for communication between groups; "he provided a liaison with the guerrillas" [syn: liaison, link, contact, inter-group communication]
7: (electronics) a junction where things (as two electrical conductors) touch or are in physical contact; "they forget to solder the contacts" [syn: contact, tangency]
8: a communicative interaction; "the pilot made contact with the base"; "he got in touch with his colleagues" [syn: contact, touch]
9: a thin curved glass or plastic lens designed to fit over the cornea in order to correct vision or to deliver medication [syn: contact, contact lens] v
1: be in or establish communication with; "Our advertisements reach millions"; "He never contacted his children after he emigrated to Australia" [syn: reach, get through, get hold of, contact]
2: be in direct physical contact with; make contact; "The two buildings touch"; "Their hands touched"; "The wire must not contact the metal cover"; "The surfaces contact at this point" [syn: touch, adjoin, meet, contact]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: French or Latin; French, from Latin contactus, from contingere to have contact with — more at contingent Date: 1626 1. a. union or junction of surfaces b. the apparent touching or mutual tangency of the limbs of two celestial bodies or of the disk of one body with the shadow of another during an eclipse, transit, or occultation c. (1) the junction of two electrical conductors through which a current passes (2) a special part made for such a junction 2. a. association, relationship b. connection, communication c. an establishing of communication with someone or an observing or receiving of a significant signal from a person or object <radar contact with Mars> 3. a person serving as a go-between, messenger, connection, or source of special information <business contacts> 4. contact lens II. verb Date: 1834 intransitive verb to make contact transitive verb 1. to bring into contact 2. a. to enter or be in contact with ; join b. to get in communication with <contact your local dealer> Usage: The use of contact as a verb, especially in sense 2b, is accepted as standard by almost all commentators except those who write college handbooks. III. adjective Date: 1859 maintaining, involving, or activated or caused by contact <contact poisons> <contact sports> <contact dermatitis>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 the state or condition of touching, meeting, or communicating. 2 a person who is or may be communicated with for information, supplies, assistance, etc. 3 Electr. a a connection for the passage of a current. b a device for providing this. 4 a person likely to carry a contagious disease through being associated with an infected person. 5 (usu. in pl.) colloq. a contact lens. --v.tr. 1 get into communication with (a person). 2 begin correspondence or personal dealings with. Phrases and idioms: contact lens a small lens placed directly on the eyeball to correct the vision. contact print a photographic print made by placing a negative directly on sensitized paper etc. and illuminating it. contact sport a sport in which participants necessarily come into bodily contact with one another. Derivatives: contactable adj. Etymology: L contactus f. contingere (as com-, tangere touch)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Contact Con"tact, n. [L. contactus, fr. contingere, -tactum, to touch on all sides. See Contingent.] 1. A close union or junction of bodies; a touching or meeting. 2. (Geom.) The property of two curves, or surfaces, which meet, and at the point of meeting have a common direction. 3. (Mining) The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock. --Raymond. Contact level, a delicate level so pivoted as to tilt when two parts of a measuring apparatus come into contact with each other; -- used in precise determinations of lengths and in the accurate graduation of instruments.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(contacts, contacting, contacted) Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. 1. Contact involves meeting or communicating with someone, especially regularly. Opposition leaders are denying any contact with the government in Kabul... He forbade contacts between directors and executives outside his presence. N-UNCOUNT: also N in pl, oft N with/between n 2. If you are in contact with someone, you regularly meet them or communicate with them. He was in direct contact with the kidnappers... We do keep in contact. PHRASE: usu v-link PHR, oft PHR with n 3. If you contact someone, you telephone them, write to them, or go to see them in order to tell or ask them something. Contact the Tourist Information Bureau for further details... When she first contacted me Frances was upset. VERB: V n, V n 4. If you come into contact with someone or something, you meet that person or thing in the course of your work or other activities. The college has brought me into contact with western ideas. N-UNCOUNT: into N with n 5. If you make contact with someone, you find out where they are and talk or write to them. Then, after she had become famous, he tried to make contact with her. PHRASE: V inflects, PHR with n, pl-n V 6. If you lose contact with someone who you have been friendly with, you no longer see them, speak to them, or write to them. Though they all live nearby, I lost contact with them really quickly... Mother and son lost contact when Nicholas was in his early twenties. PHRASE: V inflects, PHR with n, pl-n V 7. When people or things are in contact, they are touching each other. They compared how these organisms behaved when left in contact with different materials... The cry occurs when air is brought into contact with the baby's larynx... There was no physical contact, nor did I want any... N-UNCOUNT: oft in/into N with n 8. Radio contact is communication by means of radio. ...a technical problem reported by the pilot moments before he lost contact with the control tower. 9. A contact is someone you know in an organization or profession who helps you or gives you information. Their contact in the United States Embassy was called Phil. N-COUNT 10. to make eye contact: see eye

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Touch, juxtaposition, junction, contiguity, close union.

Moby Thesaurus

ESP, accord, acquaintance, answer, approach, arbitrator, assail the ear, association, attouchement, be heard, breath, broker, brush, brush by, caress, caress the ear, closeness, come in contact, commerce, communicate with, communication, communion, companionship, concord, congress, conjunction, connection, contiguity, contingence, conversation, converse, correspond, correspond with, correspondence, cutaneous sense, dealing, dealings, empathy, establish connection, exchange, feel, feeling, fellowship, fingertip caress, flick, friend, gain a hearing, get, get across, get hold of, get through to, get to, glance, go-between, graze, hand-mindedness, harmony, hit, impinge, impingement, impingence, in, information, interaction, interagent, interchange, intercommunication, intercommunion, intercourse, intermediary, intermediate, intermedium, internuncio, interplay, interpleader, interrogate, junction, kiss, lambency, lap, lick, light touch, linguistic intercourse, maintain connection, make advances, make an impression, make contact with, make oneself heard, make overtures, make up to, mediator, medium, message, middleman, nearness, negotiant, negotiator, nudge, oneness, osculate, osculation, phone, propinquity, proximity, question, raise, rapport, reach, reach the ear, register, relate to, relation, reply, reply to, respond to, response, ring up, rub, scrape, sense of touch, shave, sideswipe, skim, skirt, social intercourse, speak to, speak with, speaking, speech, speech circuit, speech situation, squeak by, stroke, sympathy, tactile sense, taction, talking, tangency, tap, telepathy, telephone, tentative contact, tentative poke, touch, touching, traffic, truck, two-way communication, understanding, union, unity, whisper, write to