What does "contract" mean?

Additional senses

1. 2.To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease. Each from each contract new strength and light. Pope. Such behavior we contract by having much conversed with persons of high statiSwift.
2. 3.To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for. We have contracted an inviolable amity, peace, and lague with the aforesaid queen. Hakluyt. Many persons . . . had contracted marriage within the degrees of consanguinity . . . prohibited by law. Strype.
3. 4.To betroth; to affiance. The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure, that nothing can dissolve us. Shak.
4. 5.(Gram.) To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.
5. 6.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. Years contracting to a moment. Wordsworth.
6. 7.To make an agreement; to covenant; to agree; to bargain; as, to contract for carrying the mail.
7. 8.Contracted: as, a contract verb. Goodwin.
8. 9.Contracted; affianced; betrothed. [Obs.] Shak.
9. 10.(Law) 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. Wharton.
10. 11.A formal writing which contains the agreement of parties, with the terms and conditions, and which serves as a proof of the obligation.
11. 12.The act of formally betrothing a man and woman. This is the the night of the contract. Longwellow. See Covenant.