contact

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A coming together or touching, as of objects or surfaces.
2. n. The state or condition of touching or of immediate proximity: Litmus paper turns red on contact with an acid.
3. n. Connection or interaction; communication: still in contact with my former employer.
4. n. Visual observation: The pilot made contact with the ship.
5. n. Association; relationship: came into contact with new ideas at college.
6. n. A person who might be of use; a connection: The reporter met with her contact at the mayor's office.
7. n. A connection between two conductors that permits a flow of current or heat.
8. n. A part or device that makes or breaks such a connection.
9. n. Medicine A person recently exposed to a contagious disease, usually through close association with an infected individual.
10. n. A contact lens.
11. v. To bring or put in contact.
12. v. To get in touch with; communicate with: "This past January I was contacted by a lawyer who said he needed my help” ( Elizabeth Loftus).
13. v. To be in or come into contact.
14. adj. Of, sustaining, or making contact.
15. adj. Caused or transmitted by touching: a contact skin rash.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A touching; touch; the coincidence of one or more points on the surface of each of two bodies without interpenetration of the bodies; apposition of separate bodies or points without sensible intervening space.
2. n. Specifically, in mathematics, coincidence, as of two curves, in two or more consecutive points; the having a point and the tangent plane at that point in common.
3. n. The act of making one body abut against another; the bringing together so as to touch.
4. n. in mathematics, coincidence of n + 1 consecutive points.
5. To be together or in contact; touch; abut.
6. n. In geology, the surface of juncture, specifically of an igneous intrusion and its containing-walls, along which mineralogical and structural changes, and especially ore-deposits, are often developed; also applied to the surface of juncture of any two contrasted rocks.
7. n. In anthropology, the meeting of tribes or peoples of different culture, particularly that of a primitive tribe with the trade and influence of a superior people.
8. n. In psychology: A light pressure upon the skin; a low degree of intensity of the adequate stimulus of the pressure-spots.
9. n. A weak sensation of pressure. Some psychologists regard the sensation of contact as qualitatively different from the sensation of pressure. In all probability, however, the two are simply degrees of one and the same sensible quality.
10. n. sensitized paper used for contact-printing.
11. n. The sensations aroused by pressure of one part of the skin upon another.
12. n. The twofold sensation (pressure followed by pain) which arises when the skin, for example, of the wrist is tapped with the point of a needle whose shaft is held loosely between the finger and thumb of the other hand.
13. n. A method of making an electric are pass between terminals by interrupting an electric circuit, the contact points passing over each other with a sliding or wiping contact. The are terminals are kept free of oxid or deposit, because the surfaces are cleansed by the sliding action.
14. n. One who has boon exposed to an infectious disease by contact or near association with a person suffering from it.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of touching physically.
2. n. The establishment of communication (with).
3. n. A nodule designed to connect a device with something else.
4. n. Someone with whom one is in communication.
5. n. informal A contact lens.
6. n. electricity a device designed for repetitive connections.
7. n. informal, by ellipsis Contact juggling.
8. v. transitive To touch; to come into physical contact with.
9. v. transitive To establish communication with something or someone

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A close union or junction of bodies; a touching or meeting.
2. n. (Geom.) The property of two curves, or surfaces, which meet, and at the point of meeting have a common direction.
3. n. (Mining) The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock.
4. n. (Electricity) A metallic conducting component of an electrical device connected to a circuit within and so situated that it may form a conducting pathway to an external power source or device when contacted by another conductor.
5. n. A person who serves to commmunicate information to or from one group to another, whether formally or informally.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the state or condition of touching or of being in immediate proximity
2. n. (electronics) a junction where things (as two electrical conductors) touch or are in physical contact
3. n. a communicative interaction
4. n. close interaction
5. v. be in or establish communication with
6. n. the physical coming together of two or more things
7. n. a channel for communication between groups
8. n. the act of touching physically
9. v. be in direct physical contact with; make contact
10. n. a person who is in a position to give you special assistance
11. n. a thin curved glass or plastic lens designed to fit over the cornea in order to correct vision or to deliver medication