Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Capable of contraction.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Capable of contraction.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Capable of contraction
  • adjective mathematics (of a topological set) Able to be reduced to one of its points by a continuous deformation

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I may be wrong here, but as far as I am aware; avian flu is not easily contractible by humans atm…What people are worried about is what will happen when the flu mutates evolves.

    AMA Op-Ed: living in "loopy times," and what medical professionals can do - The Panda's Thumb 2005

  • So contractible and tough is the skin, that once the point of the harpoon is embedded in it, nothing but a strong and direct tug will release it.

    The Confessions of a Beachcomber 2003

  • So contractible and tough is the skin, that once the point of the harpoon is embedded in it, nothing but a strong and direct tug will release it.

    Confessions of a Beachcomber 1887

  • It is not enough for the victim to be unable to move from place to place beneath the soil: in addition to this, the contractible power in its sturdy muscular organism must be suppressed.

    More Hunting Wasps Jean-Henri Fabre 1869

  • If there is a very short non-contractible circle in your compactification, strings can be winding around it many times.

    The Reference Frame 2010

  • It makes no sense at this point to talk about the most contractible issue.

    SmallGovTimes.com 2009

  • However, in the homotopy group is not null homotpic, which is equivalent to the fact that the sphere is not contractible.

    Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2008

  • Since all known bodies are contractible into less space by depriving them of some portion of their heat, and as there is no part of nature totally deprived of heat, there is reason to believe that the particles of bodies do not touch, but are held towards each other by their self - attraction, and recede from each other by their attraction to the mass of heat which surrounds them; and thus exist in an equilibrium between these two powers.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • "The TRC and the Department of Justice jointly understand that no part or process of the commission can be haphazardly concluded, and for this reason the TRC will still be contractible in Cape Town on

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2001

  • "In regard to the pure question of the sufficiency of your salary, they hint in the kindest manner that all expenditures are contractible as well as extensible.

    Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 Various

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