Contact

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ækt

Origin

From Latin contactus, from contingere (to touch on all sides), from tangere (to touch). Used in English since the 17th Century.

Full definition of contact

Noun

1. The act of touching physically; being in close association.
• 1935, George Goodchild, Death on the Centre Court Chapter 1, 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.
2. The establishment of communication (with).
   I haven't been in contact with her for years.
• 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 1, 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.
3. A nodule designed to connect a device with something else.
   Touch the contact to ground and read the number again.
4. Someone with whom one is in communication.
   The salesperson had a whole binder full of contacts for potential clients.
5. (informal) A contact lens.
6. (electricity) A device designed for repetitive connections.
7. (informal, by ellipsis) Contact juggling.
   I bought myself a new contact ball last week
8. (mining) The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock.

Derived terms

• body contact
• contact hitter
• contactable
• eye contact
• first contact
• golden contact
• point of contact
  POC

Verb

1. (transitive) To touch; to come into physical contact with.The side of the car contacted the pedestrian.
2. (transitive) To establish communication with something or someoneI am trying to contact my sister.