contact
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Latin contactus, from contingō (“I touch on all sides”), from tangō (“I touch”). Used in English since the 17th century.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (noun):
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkɑntækt/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkɒntækt/
- (verb):
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkɑntækt/, /kənˈtækt/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkɒntækt/, /kənˈtækt/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -ækt
Noun
[edit]contact (countable and uncountable, plural contacts)
- The act of touching physically; being in close association.
- 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court:
- 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.
- The establishment of communication (with).
- I haven't been in contact with her for years.
- 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:
- 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.
- The situation of being within sight of something; visual contact.
- 1983, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Government Activities and Transportation Subcommittee, Hazardous Obstructions at San Francisco Airport, page 126:
- If the pilot […] cannot establish visual contact with the ground, he must immediately execute a missed-approach procedure […]
- A nodule designed to connect a device with something else.
- Touch the contact to ground and read the number again.
- Someone who can be contacted, or with whom one is in communication.
- (by extension) Means of communication with a person, especially in the form of a telephone number.
- Who is the company's contact for sales queries?
- The salesperson had a whole binder full of contacts for potential clients.
- (informal) A contact lens.
- (electricity) A device designed for repetitive connections.
- (informal, by ellipsis) Contact juggling.
- I bought myself a new contact ball last week
- (mining) The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock.[1]
Derived terms
[edit]- 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 linguistics
- contact manifold
- contact metamorphism
- contact number
- contact person
- contact print
- contact process
- contact shoe
- contact sport
- contact time
- contact trace, contact-trace
- contact tracer
- contact tracing, contact-tracing
- contactual
- contact wire
- coontact
- cross-contact
- electrical contact
- eye contact
- first contact
- fourth contact
- fourth point of contact
- golden contact
- intercontact
- language 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
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]an act of touching physically
|
an establishment of communication
|
colloquial: a contact lens — see also contact lens
|
electrical: a device designed for repetitive connections
|
someone with whom one is in communication
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Verb
[edit]contact (third-person singular simple present contacts, present participle contacting, simple past and past participle contacted)
- (transitive, occasionally proscribed) To touch; to come into physical contact with.
- The side of the car contacted the pedestrian.
- (transitive, occasionally proscribed) To establish communication with (something or someone).
- I am trying to contact my sister.
Usage notes
[edit]- The use of contact as a verb is occasionally discountenanced. Nonetheless, its usefulness and popularity have – at least to some extent – worn down resistance.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]touch physically
|
establish communication with
|
References
[edit]- ^ Rossiter W[orthington] Raymond (1881) “Contact”, in A Glossary of Mining and Metallurgical Terms. […], Easton, Pa.: [American] Institute [of Mining Engineers], […], →OCLC.
Chinese
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- Cantonese
- (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)+
- Jyutping: kon1 tek4
- Yale: kōn tèhk
- Cantonese Pinyin: kon1 tek4
- Guangdong Romanization: kon1 tég4
- Sinological IPA (key): /kʰɔːn⁵⁵ tʰɛːk̚²¹/
- (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)+
Noun
[edit]contact
Verb
[edit]contact
- (Hong Kong Cantonese) to contact; to establish communication with
Dutch
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from French contact, from Latin contactus.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]contact n (plural contacten, diminutive contactje n)
- physical contact, touching
- contact (close association)
- contact (communication, exchange)
- contact (someone with whom communication has been established)
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Descendants
[edit]- Afrikaans: kontak
- → Caribbean Javanese: kontag
- → Indonesian: kontak
- → Javanese: ꦏꦺꦴꦤ꧀ꦠꦏ꧀ (kontak)
- → West Frisian: kontakt
French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin contactus.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]contact m (plural contacts)
- (physical) contact; contact (with another person)
- contact (person that one knows)
- rapport
- Vous avez un bon contact avec les enfants. ― You have a good rapport with children.
Derived terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “contact”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Romanian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio: (file)
Noun
[edit]contact n (plural contacte)
Declension
[edit]Declension of contact
singular | plural | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
indefinite articulation | definite articulation | indefinite articulation | definite articulation | |
nominative/accusative | (un) contact | contactul | (niște) contacte | contactele |
genitive/dative | (unui) contact | contactului | (unor) contacte | contactelor |
vocative | contactule | contactelor |
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *teh₂g- (touch)
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ækt
- Rhymes:English/ækt/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with usage examples
- English informal terms
- en:Electricity
- English ellipses
- en:Mining
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English proscribed terms
- en:Communication
- en:People
- Cantonese terms borrowed from English
- Cantonese terms derived from English
- Chinese lemmas
- Cantonese lemmas
- Chinese nouns
- Cantonese nouns
- Chinese verbs
- Cantonese verbs
- Chinese terms with IPA pronunciation
- Chinese terms written in foreign scripts
- Hong Kong Cantonese
- Dutch terms borrowed from French
- Dutch terms derived from French
- Dutch terms derived from Latin
- Dutch terms with IPA pronunciation
- Dutch terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:Dutch/ɑkt
- Dutch lemmas
- Dutch nouns
- Dutch nouns with plural in -en
- Dutch neuter nouns
- French terms borrowed from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French terms with usage examples
- Romanian terms borrowed from French
- Romanian terms derived from French
- Romanian terms with audio pronunciation
- Romanian lemmas
- Romanian nouns
- Romanian countable nouns
- Romanian neuter nouns