contact

Formscontacts, contacting, contacted

Pluralcontacts (some meanings)

1. 1
   reach someoneverbtransitive

   To establish communication with a person or organization, as by telephone, email, or letter.

   Investigators contacted everyone who attended the event that night.

   You can contact our support team through the app at any hour.

   UsageTakes a direct object: contact your bank (not incorrect: contact with your bank). In contact with belongs to the noun.

   Similarreach, call, phone, approach

2. 2
   touchingnoununcountable

   The act or state of physical touching, or of being in close association.

   The chemical is dangerous on contact with bare skin.

   Years of close contact with the local community shaped her research.

   UsageCommon phrases: on contact, come into contact with, make contact, close contact with.

   Similartouch, association, connection, proximity, interaction

   Note

   Close association is that touch made figurative, and George Goodchild in 1935 stretches it to ill-matched furniture set side by side. From here grew the communication meaning. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • George Goodchild used contact to describe incongruous furniture brought together. en.wiktionary.org
3. 3
   communicationnoununcountable

   Communication with a person, group, or organization, whether newly established or ongoing.

   After years without contact, the two brothers finally reconciled.

   Mission control reestablished contact with the spacecraft after a tense forty minutes.

   UsageYou are in contact with, get in contact with or lose contact with someone.

   Similarcommunication, touch, connection, correspondence

   Note

   The plural can stretch to whole peoples. Werner Winter, writing in 1989, calls language data the only evidence for "prehistoric ethnic and cultural contacts." Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Werner Winter published the cited article in 1989. jstor.org
   • Winter used the quoted wording about language data and prehistoric contacts. en.wiktionary.org
4. 4
   person you knownouncountable

   A person who can be reached for communication, or with whom one is already in communication.

   The journalist refused to name her contact inside the ministry.

   Years of conferences left him with contacts in nearly every major lab.

   UsageYou have contacts in a field or a contact at a company.

   Similarsource, connection, acquaintance, informant

5. 5
   way to reachnouncountable

   A means of communicating with a person, especially in the form of a telephone number.

   The only contact we have for her landlord is an old cell number that goes straight to voicemail.

   The only contact listed on the charity's website was a general email address.

   UsageOften in contact details, contact information or contact number.

   Similarnumber

6. 6
   eye lensnouncolloquialcountable

   A thin corrective lens worn directly on the eyeball rather than in frames.

   He switched from glasses to contacts during high school.

   One contact kept drifting whenever her eyes got dry.

   UsageShort for contact lens; you wear contacts or put in your contacts.

   Similarlens

7. 7
   to touchverbtransitive

   To touch; to come into direct physical connection with something.

   The probe gently contacted the asteroid's surface before collecting a sample.

   The electrode must not contact the housing during assembly.

   Similartouch, meet

8. 8
   sightingnoununcountable

   The condition of being within sight of someone or something, so that it can be seen directly.

   Descending through the overcast, the crew made visual contact with the runway at four hundred feet.

   From the tower, the guards had clear visual contact with every corner of the yard.

   UsageUsually visual contact: make, keep or lose visual contact with someone or something.

   Note

   Pilots and controllers use this sense with precision. Visual contact means the ground or runway is actually in sight. A 1983 House subcommittee record on San Francisco Airport includes guidance that a pilot who cannot establish visual contact with the ground must immediately fly a missed approach. A controller's "radar contact" carries the idea over to sensors: the aircraft has been identified on the display.

Showing meanings only. Show all 11