How to Use contraction in a Sentence

contraction

noun
  • Two teams were eliminated in the contraction of the baseball league.
  • The hot metal undergoes contraction as it cools.
  • She felt contractions every two minutes.
  • Then came the 2023 strikes and the streaming contraction.
    — Lane Brown, Vulture, 3 June 2025
  • But the strikes were not the only causes of the contraction, the report found.
    — Christi Carras, Los Angeles Times, 7 Dec. 2023
  • Writhing on the living room floor in the swell of a fierce contraction, Martha rolls over and bites Sean’s calf.
    — Hillary Kelly, Vulture, 12 Jan. 2021
  • In April, the forecast was for an 8% to 10% contraction.
    — Clare Sebastian, CNN, 28 Aug. 2022
  • That’s still the sharpest annual contraction since the Great Frost of 1709.
    — Hanna Ziady, CNN, 4 Sep. 2023
  • There has not been a contraction like this one since World War II.
    — Dick Lepre, National Review, 14 Dec. 2022
  • His first name, Sanche, was a contraction of St. Charles.
    — Bob Drogin, Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2023
  • The growth during the third quarter follows a contraction during the first half of the year.
    — CBS News, 22 Dec. 2022
  • From here, focus on the contraction and the squeeze—even look down at your chest to watch the squeeze, Samuel advises.
    — Jeff Tomko, Men's Health, 23 June 2022
  • That would be the largest earnings contraction since the second quarter of 2020.
    — Hannah Miao, WSJ, 6 Apr. 2023
  • Even after the strike — or strikes — and all this contraction, the sandbox is still going to be big.
    — Mikey O'Connell, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 June 2023
  • But there are people will use a bounce from the floor to make the contraction at the beginning of the move easier.
    — Cori Ritchey, Men's Health, 27 Feb. 2023
  • To ease the pain of her contractions, doctors gave her narcotics.
    — Shoshana Walter, USA TODAY, 11 Dec. 2024
  • Yet what played out was a contraction of 3.1%—still a huge loss of output, but not nearly as dire.
    — Time, 12 Jan. 2023
  • Does this mean that the Covid-19 contraction was only a blip and then things will get back to the pre-pandemic path soon?
    — Shoaib Daniyal, Quartz India, 30 Nov. 2020
  • The contraction resumes a more than two-year downward trend in the sector.
    — Tobias Burns, The Hill, 17 Apr. 2025
  • The closings mark the latest contraction of US drug stores in recent years.
    — Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN, 19 Nov. 2021
  • The final nurse, plain face and plain name, studies a tracing of my contractions and tells me when to bear down, when to ease up.
    — Erica Stern june 9, Literary Hub, 9 June 2025
  • That means a powerful hip extension through a strong contraction of the glutes to push the hips open.
    — Cori Ritchey, Men's Health, 1 Sep. 2023
  • This collapsible contraction mimics the squat rack and free weights at the gym.
    — John Thompson, Men's Health, 7 Dec. 2022
  • Pro tip: drive up with your pinky to emphasize the contraction.
    — Brett Williams, Men's Health, 2 June 2022
  • That’s the lowest since the third quarter in 2016, when the economy was in a contraction that lasted for over a year.
    — Ruth Olurounbi, Bloomberg.com, 21 Nov. 2020
  • Per the sister Household Survey, about 40% of the growth in jobs was part-time which helps explain the contraction in the workweek.
    — Robert Barone, Forbes, 6 Nov. 2021
  • The bank predicts a 7% GDP contraction for Russia this year.
    — Yvonne Lau, Fortune, 9 Mar. 2022
  • For other Floridians, the past few years have been a slow agony of contraction.
    — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 11 Aug. 2021
  • The fatigue, high liver enzymes, pain, indigestion, and muscle contractions were all red flags of a struggling liver.
    — Susan Horava, Health, 24 June 2025
  • Additional tariffs would further hurt these two exports-dependent economies that are grappling with a slowdown in growth, with Japan likely staring at a technical recession, or two straight quarters of economic contraction.
    — Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 9 July 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'contraction.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: