What's the difference between contract and reduce?

Contract


Definition:

  • (n.) To draw together or nearer; to reduce to a less compass; to shorten, narrow, or lessen; as, to contract one's sphere of action.
  • (n.) To draw together so as to wrinkle; to knit.
  • (n.) To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease.
  • (n.) To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for.
  • (n.) To betroth; to affiance.
  • (n.) To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.
  • (v. i.) To be drawn together so as to be diminished in size or extent; to shrink; to be reduced in compass or in duration; as, iron contracts in cooling; a rope contracts when wet.
  • (v. i.) To make an agreement; to covenant; to agree; to bargain; as, to contract for carrying the mail.
  • (a.) Contracted; as, a contract verb.
  • (a.) Contracted; affianced; betrothed.
  • (n.) The agreement of two or more persons, upon a sufficient consideration or cause, to do, or to abstain from doing, some act; an agreement in which a party undertakes to do, or not to do, a particular thing; a formal bargain; a compact; an interchange of legal rights.
  • (n.) A formal writing which contains the agreement of parties, with the terms and conditions, and which serves as a proof of the obligation.
  • (n.) The act of formally betrothing a man and woman.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) During the performance of propulsive waves of the oesophagus the implanted vagus nerve caused clonic to tetanic contractions of the sternohyoid muscle, thus proving the oesophagomotor genesis of the reinnervating nerve fibres.
  • (2) But RWE admitted it had often only been able to retain customers with expired contracts by offering them new deals with more favourable conditions.
  • (3) Thus adrenaline, via pre- and post-junctional adrenoceptors, may contribute to enhanced vascular smooth muscle contraction, which most likely is sensitized by the elevated intracellular calcium concentration.
  • (4) Further, the maximal increase in force of contraction was measured using papillary muscle strips from some of these patients.
  • (5) When subjects centered themselves actively, or additionally, contracted trunk flexor or extensor muscles to predetermined levels of activity, no increase in trunk positioning accuracy was found.
  • (6) Twitch-tetanus ratios were calculated and found not to be related to unit contraction time.6.
  • (7) Selective removal of endothelium had no effect on BK-induced contraction or the action of the antagonists.
  • (8) The increased muscular strength in due to a rise of calcaemia, improved muscle contraction and probably also due to the mentioned nutritional factors.
  • (9) However, there was not a relationship between the contraction curve of the gallbladder and the bile flow into the duodenum.
  • (10) In in vitro preparations GABA (10(-7) - 10(-3) M) elicited a dose-dependent relaxation; a decrease in the spontaneous contractions was sometimes observed.
  • (11) There was no correlation between disturbed gastric clearance, impaired gall bladder contraction, and prolonged colonic transit time in the patients with cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy nor was there a correlation between any disturbed motor function and age or duration of diabetes.
  • (12) Noradrenaline decreased the phasic contraction amplitude of the circular muscle and exerted a stimulant effect on the tone which suggested an existence of two alpha 1-adrenoceptor subtypes.
  • (13) It may, however, be useful to compare local wall dynamics in the more isometrically-contracting basal segment with those in the middle portion which brings about most of the emptying of the ventricle.
  • (14) Upon depletion of ATP in contraction, the P2 intensity reverted to the original rigor level, accompanied by development of rigor tension.
  • (15) L-NAME abolished B contractions in a dose-dependent fashion.
  • (16) The power spectrum of the EMG was analyzed during isometric contractions of the shoulder muscles.
  • (17) A23187 had only a transient effect on KCl-contracted coronary arteries.
  • (18) When caffeine evokes a contraction, and only then, crayfish muscle fibers become refractory to a second challenge with caffeine for up to 20 min in the standard saline (5 mM K(o)).
  • (19) Dopamine at concentrations over 10(-5)M induced contractions of tracheal muscle strips and repeated exposures resulted in desensitization (tachyphylaxis) of the muscle.
  • (20) In the present study we examined cholecystokinin release and gallbladder contraction after oral administration of a commercial fatty meal (Sorbitract; Dagra, Diemen, The Netherlands) using ultrasonography in eight normal subjects and eight gallstone patients before and after 1 and 4 weeks of treatment with ursodeoxycholic acid (10 mg kg-1.day-1).

Reduce


Definition:

  • (n.) To bring or lead back to any former place or condition.
  • (n.) To bring to any inferior state, with respect to rank, size, quantity, quality, value, etc.; to diminish; to lower; to degrade; to impair; as, to reduce a sergeant to the ranks; to reduce a drawing; to reduce expenses; to reduce the intensity of heat.
  • (n.) To bring to terms; to humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture; as, to reduce a province or a fort.
  • (n.) To bring to a certain state or condition by grinding, pounding, kneading, rubbing, etc.; as, to reduce a substance to powder, or to a pasty mass; to reduce fruit, wood, or paper rags, to pulp.
  • (n.) To bring into a certain order, arrangement, classification, etc.; to bring under rules or within certain limits of descriptions and terms adapted to use in computation; as, to reduce animals or vegetables to a class or classes; to reduce a series of observations in astronomy; to reduce language to rules.
  • (n.) To change, as numbers, from one denomination into another without altering their value, or from one denomination into others of the same value; as, to reduce pounds, shillings, and pence to pence, or to reduce pence to pounds; to reduce days and hours to minutes, or minutes to days and hours.
  • (n.) To change the form of a quantity or expression without altering its value; as, to reduce fractions to their lowest terms, to a common denominator, etc.
  • (n.) To bring to the metallic state by separating from impurities; hence, in general, to remove oxygen from; to deoxidize; to combine with, or to subject to the action of, hydrogen; as, ferric iron is reduced to ferrous iron; or metals are reduced from their ores; -- opposed to oxidize.
  • (n.) To restore to its proper place or condition, as a displaced organ or part; as, to reduce a dislocation, a fracture, or a hernia.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There was appreciable variation in toothbrush wear among subjects, some reducing their brush to a poor state in 2 weeks whereas with others the brush was rated as "good" after 10 weeks.
  • (2) Disease stabilisation was associated with prolonged periods of comparatively high plasma levels of drug, which appeared to be determined primarily by reduced drug clearance.
  • (3) These included bringing in the A* grade, reducing the number of modules from six to four, and a greater attempt to assess the whole course at the end.
  • (4) It is concluded that amlodipine reduces myocardial ischemic injury by mechanism(s) that may involve a reduction in myocardial oxygen demand as well as by positively influencing transmembrane Ca2+ fluxes during ischemia and reperfusion.
  • (5) Open field behaviors and isolation-induced aggression were reduced by anxiolytics, at doses which may be within the sedative-hypnotic range.
  • (6) With aging, the blood vessel wall becomes hyperreactive--presumably because of an augmented vasoconstrictor and a reduced vasodilator responsiveness.
  • (7) In addition, DDT blocked succinate dehydrogenase and the cytochrome b-c span of the electron transport chain, which also secondarily reduced ATP synthesis.
  • (8) Although Jeggo's Chinese hamster ovary cells were more responsive to mAMSA, novo still abrogated mAMSA toxicity in the mutant cells as well as in the parental Chinese hamster ovary cells 2,4-Dinitrophenol acted similarly to novo with respect to mAMSA killing, but neither compound reduced the ATP content of V79 cells.
  • (9) At pH 7.0, reduction is complete after 6 to 10 h. These results together with an earlier study concerning the positions of the two most readily reduced bonds (Cornell J.S., and Pierce, J.G.
  • (10) Methanosphaera stadtmanae reduces methanol to CH4 in a similar way as Methanosarcina barkeri.
  • (11) There is no evidence that health-maintenance organizations reduce admissions in discretionary or "unnecessary" categories; instead, the data suggest lower admission rates across the board.
  • (12) In schizophrenic patients the density of dopamine uptake sites in the basal ganglia was slightly reduced, mainly in the middle third of putamen.
  • (13) During recovery glucose uptake was reduced and citrate release was unaffected.
  • (14) The difference in BP between a hospital casual reading and the mean 24 hour ambulatory reading was reduced only by atenolol.
  • (15) Based on several previous studies, which demonstrated that sorbitol accumulation in human red blood cells (RBCs) was a function of ambient glucose concentrations, either in vitro or in vivo, our investigations were conducted to determine if RBC sorbitol accumulation would correlate with sorbitol accumulation in lens and nerve tissue of diabetic rats; the effect of sorbinil in reducing sorbitol levels in lens and nerve tissue of diabetic rats would be reflected by changes in RBC sorbitol; and sorbinil would reduce RBC sorbitol in diabetic man.
  • (16) This was unlike the action of the calcium channel blocker, cadmium, which reduced the calcium action potential and the a.h.p.
  • (17) aeruginosa and Enterococci) were significantly reduced in number during the manipulation (Fig.
  • (18) Arginine vasopressin further reduced papillary flow in kidneys perfused with high viscosity artificial plasma.
  • (19) Epidermal growth factor reduced plating efficiency by about 50% for A431 cells in different cell cycle phases whereas a slight increase in plating efficiency was seen for SiHa cells.
  • (20) Nicardipine lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressure to normal, plasma aldosterone was reduced and serum potassium levels were increased.