contact
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkɑntækt/
ipa: /ˈkɒntækt/
ipa: /kənˈtækt/
ipa: /kənˈtækt/
rhymes: -ækt
Forms: form: contacts
Etymology: From Latin contactus, from contingō (“I touch on all sides”), from tangō (“I touch”). Used in English since the 17th century.
Senses: examples: text: She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.
ref: 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court:
glosses: The act of touching physically; being in close association.
examples: text: I haven't been in contact with her for years.
text: In the old days, […] he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: When written information is unavailable and archeological findings are subject to conflicting interpretations, language data frequently provide the only evidence for prehistoric ethnic and cultural contacts.
ref: 1989 January 24, Werner Winter, “On a new claim concerning substratum influence upon Tocharian”, in Central Asiatic Journal, volume 33, number 1/2, Harrassowitz Verlag, →ISSN, page 126:
glosses: The establishment of communication (with).
examples: text: If the pilot […] cannot establish visual contact with the ground, he must immediately execute a missed-approach procedure […]
ref: 1983, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Government Activities and Transportation Subcommittee, Hazardous Obstructions at San Francisco Airport, page 126:
glosses: The situation of being within sight of something; visual contact.
examples: text: Touch the contact to ground and read the number again.
glosses: A nodule designed to connect a device with something else.
examples: text: Who is the company's contact for sales queries?
text: The salesperson had a whole binder full of contacts for potential clients.
glosses: Someone who can be contacted, or with whom one is in communication.
glosses: Someone who can be contacted, or with whom one is in communication.
Means of communication with a person, especially in the form of a telephone number.
glosses: A contact lens.
topics: business
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
energy
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: A device designed for repetitive connections.
examples: text: I bought myself a new contact ball last week
qualifier: by ellipsis
glosses: Contact juggling.
topics: business
mining
glosses: The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock.
Derived terms: anticontact
body contact
circle contact lens
contactable
contact ball
contact binary
contact call
contact card
contact details
contact explosive
contact-free
contact geometry
contact high
contact hitter
contactin
contact inhibition
contactization
contact language
contact lens
contactless
contact level
contact line
contact linguistics
contact manifold
contact metamorphism
contact nap
contact number
contact person
contact print
contact process
contact sheet
contact shoe
contact shot
contact sport
contact time
contact trace
contact-trace
contact tracer
contact tracing
contact-tracing
contactual
contact wire
contact wound
coontact
cross-contact
direct client contact
electrical contact
eye contact
first contact
fourth contact
fourth point of contact
golden contact
intercontact
language contact
letterbox contact
line of contact
make contact with
microcontact
multicontact
nanocontact
no battle plan survives contact with the enemy
no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy
non-contact
noncontact
no plan survives contact with the enemy
no plan survives first contact with the enemy
on contact
overcontact
paleocontact
paracontact
patient contact
point of contact
POC
postcontact
precontact
pseudocontact
rolling contact
second contact
semicontact
tactical contact
thermal contact
third contact
untact