Other forms: contacts
Contact is communication with somebody, or the touching of two things. Make contact, lose contact, contact details.
The communication sense covers everything from a phone call to a whole relationship — in contact with, out of contact. Physical contact is touching. In electronics a contact is the metal part completing a circuit, and in a phone a contact is a stored person. Note contact lens; and that the Latin means touching on all sides.
1nouncontactCommunication with somebody.
“We still keep in contact, even though she moved to Australia.”
2nountouchingThe touching of two things.
“The disease spreads through contact with infected skin.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
contact is a touching or communication.
Latin contactus comes from contingere, to touch — com plus tangere. Tangent, tactile and contagion come from the same touching.
Proto-Indo-European
*teh₂g-
Latin
contactus
English, today
contact
Built from
From Latin contactus, from contingō (“to touch on all sides”), from tangō (“to touch”). Used in English since the 17th century.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA