CONTRA . A Latin preposition signifying against, in opposition, entering into the composition of some English words. It appears to be a compound of con and tra, like intra; tra for W. tras. Fr. contre.
Word of the Day: Catachrestical
Contra
Webster's Dictionary 1913
A Latin adverb and preposition, signifying against, contrary, in opposition, etc., entering as a prefix into the composition of many English words. Cf. Counter, adv. & pref.
A dance in which the partners are arranged in opposition, or in opposite lines.
Prohibited. contraband goods are such as are prohibited to be imported or exported, either by the laws of a particular kingdom or state, or by the law of nations, or by special treaties. In time of war, arms and munitions of war are not permitted by one belligerent, to be transported to the other, but are held to be contraband and liable to capture and condemnation.
1. Prohibition of trading in goods, contrary to the laws of a state or of nations.
Prohibited or excluded by law or treaty; forbidden; as, contraband goods, or trade.
1. Illegal or prohibited traffic.
3. A negro slave, during the Civil War, escaped to, or was brought within, the Union lines. Such slave was considered contraband of war.
2. To declare prohibited; to forbid.
Contraband
Encyclopedia Britannica
CONTRABAND (Low Latin, contrabannum) means, according to Ducauge, “merces banno interdicta,” and was originally applied to a prohibited domestic trade in time of peace, such as that in salt. The term does not occur in the Guidon de la Mer, or in Grotius, and is first used to denote a prohibited neutral trade with a belligerent in the Treaty of Southampton (l7th September 1625) between Charles I. and the States-General of Holland. That treaty declared that all provisions (munitions de bouche), provisions of war, ships, arms, sails, &c., silver, iron, &c., carried to Spanish ports, would along with the carrier ships and their crews be good prize. It was partly from the general use of such treaty-stipulations with neutrals, and partly from the custom of belligerents at the beginning of a war to issue declarations which they formally intimated to neutrals, and which forbade all trade in certain articles with the ports of their enemies, that the international law of contraband grew up. An example of the latter mode of proceeding is the “Placaart” issued in 1599 by the States-General, which, like the Berlin Decrees, completely interdicted all trade with Spain. The Treaty of Southampton itself was followed by two proclamations, which assume a belligerent right to place restrictions on neutral commerce, and which go the length of authorizing private ships to capture neutral bottoms carrying contraband. The practice of contraband is of course much older than the name. Thus in the Code of Justinian (iv. 41, 42) Marcian prohibits the sale to barbari alienigenae of oil, wine, several specified kinds of arms, and generally of iron. So also the Decretals, Gregery IX. (v. 6-12), and the Bull “In Caena Domini,” c. 7, denounced excommunication against such as should supply ...Saracens with arms. It is in the 17th century that the military policy and commercial interests of the various European nations begin to be indicated in their treaties relating to contraband. Opinion varied so much with the political situation, that it is difficult to extract from these treaties the prevailing custom even of a single nation. At first provisions, that is corn, &c., seem generally to have been excluded from the list, and in 1674 a great English lawyer, Sir Leoline Jenkins, told Charles II. that nothing ought to be deemed contraband “but what is directly and immediately subservient to the use of war, except it be in the case of besieged places” (which raises the distinct question of blockade), or of a “general certification by Spain to all the world.” The definition of the French Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681 is also limited to munitions of war, and even to such as have “la forme d’un instrument pouvant servir directement à l’usage de la guerre.” On the other hand, the early writers on contraband, such as Dr Zouch (De Jure Fetiali, 1634) and Albericus Gentilis (Advocationes Hispanicae), in discussing the question “An res amicorum ad hostes transeuntes intercipere liceat î” seem to assume that the belligerent has, apart from treaty, a right indefinitely to vary the list of articles constituting munitions of war, and it is clear that the test of “immediate subserviency” must vary with the character of the hostilities, the resources of the combatants, and the actual position of the conflict. In 1543 the English envoy, Sadler, challenged the Scotch fish trade to France as a species of “aid,” a word often used in the older treaties of alliance, but which can scarcely have been intended to cover the case of habitual trade; and in 1589 Queen Elizabeth successfully justified the capture of a fleet of sixty vessels, belonging to the Hanse confederation, and carrying corn and naval munitions to Spain. In all these cases some ordinance, placaart, or treaty was appealed to, but these documents were of course liable to ex post facto interpretation, and such interpretations were acquiesced in from necessity or from motives of policy. A powerful neutral, dissatisfied with the decision of the captor’s prize court, might issue letters of reprisal. This was done by England when a cargo of tobacco, bound for Holland, was condemned in Spain on the ground that by its use “the consumption of victuals might be prolonged.” The general principle, before the writings of Grotius permanently affected the public law of Europe, was, therefore, that the private right of neutral merchants to free trade must yield to the public right of the belligerent to put such limits on neutral trade as were reasonably necessary in the conduct of war,— that right being exercised in a public and legal manner. After the Peace of Westphalia, the grand pensionary of Holland, John de Witt, contended strongly for the extension of neutral rights, and in 1662 by treaty with France the Dutch adopted the definition of contraband in the 12th and 13th articles of the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain (1659), which included munitions of war, and specially excluded almost everything in the nature of ordinary provisions. For some time England maintained (as in her Treaty of Whitehall with Sweden, 1661) the doctrine that money, ships, and provisions were to be deemed contraband, but in her Treaty of Breda with Holland (1667), and her Treaty of St Germain-en-Laye with France (1677), she practically adopted the rule of the Pyrenees, with this extension, that the neutral trade might take place even between two enemy ports, provided neither was blockaded. This explains the singular agreement made by England and Holland in 1689 for a wholesale blockade of the ports, harbours, and roadsteads of France. The treaties of the 18th century proceeded for the most parton the Treaty of Utrecht, “which embodied the French doctrine of contraband” (Hall, Rights and Duties of Neutrals, 1874). As, however, some powers never contracted with each other on the subject, and as the treaties made were for limited periods, and were often broken by the outbreak of war, there was plenty of room for controversy and for the enforcement of national opinions. The classical division of contraband by Grotius was as follows: “Sunt res quae in bello tantum usum habent, ut arma; sunt quae in bello nullum habent usum, ut quae voluptati inserviunt; sunt quae et in bello et extra bellum usum habent, ut pecuniae, commeatus, naves, et quae navibus adsunt.” The only difficulty arises in connection with the third class, of which Grotius says that the state of the war must be considered, and that “if seizure is necessary for defence, the necessity confers a right of arresting the goods” (De Jure Belli et Pacis, iii. 1. 5). A leading question in the 18th century was whether naval stores should be deemed contraband, the Baltic powers (supported by the writings of Heineccius and Valin) inclining to the affirmative, while Bynkershυek (Quaest. Jur. Pub. i. 10, 1737) and Lampredi (Del Commercio dei Popoli Neutrali in Tempo di Guerra, § 70) maintained, in conformity with the 20th article of the Treaty of Utrecht, that goods, though possibly of warlike use, were not contraband, if not worked into the form of an instrument of war. Other authors, as Vattel (Droit des Gens, iii. 7, 112) and Heineccius (De navibus ob vecturam vetitarum mercium commissis, Comm, xiv.), attached great value to the fact of urgent need among the enemy—“si hostis laboret inopiâ”—and were prepared on this ground even to include provisions as contraband. The first armed neutrality of 1789, alarmed by the growing naval power of Great Britain, declared that only munitions of war and sulphur should be contraband. (This is the krieg s-contrfbande of German jurists. See Lord Grenville’s Letters of Sulpicius Ward.) In 1793 both England and France made large seizures of provisions, the former pretending that there was a chance of reducing France by famine, and the French executive having assumed the direction of the whole corn trade of their country. Both sides were wrong, and were nobly rebuked by the counter declaration of the Danish minister, Count Bernstorf, in which he explained that a neutral was neither a party nor a judge, and could take no notice of a reciprocity of injuries. The United States also energetically protested against the notion that provisions, not destined to a blockaded port, could in any circumstances be contraband,—a position inconsistent with the modern American doctrine that an actual military destination even of luxuries will impress on the cargo a contraband character. The second armed neutrality of 1800 took up the same position as the first; and in 1803 England and Russia agreed that money, horses, ships, and manufactured articles for naval use were to be confiscated, naval stores, the produce of either country, being brought in for pre-emption. The only existing treaties of England on this subject are those with Portugal in 1820 (munitions of war, sulphur, horses, money, and naval stores) and with Brazil in 1827 (munitions of war and naval stores). Throughout the French wars, however, the law administered by Lord Stowell and others in the English prize court was much harsher than the treaty obligations of the nation. The circumstances which Lord Stowell considered favourable to a cargo were these :—1. Its being the product of the neutral country, and therefore a natural export; 2. Its being in an unmanufactured state, as hemp or iron; 3. Its destination to a commercial nota military port(“Jonge Margaretha,” 1 Rob. Adm. Rep.) Among modern jurists Ortolan (Diplomatie de la Afer., ii. 190) and Heffter (Le Droit International, § 160), as quoted by Hall, agree that contraband cannot be limited to munitions of war, but must extend to raw materials and merchandize, if clearly destined for actual and immediate military use. Ortolan expressly excludes provisions under all circumstances, but the tendency of modern decision is to bring all articles to the test proposed by Mr Dana, the editor of Wheaton,—“the right of the belligerent to prevent certain things from getting into the military use of the enemy,”—a principle which is obviously independent of the innocent or fraudulent intention of the owner of the cargo. Mr Hall proposes a classification of contraband goods, not being munitions of war, based on their more or less intimate connection with military operations. Among these he includes horses, saltpetre, sulphur, materials of naval construction, such as timber, cordage, pitch (stated by the British Government during the Crimean war to be contraband), marine engines, &c., and coal, if its immediate destination be military. Thus in the Franco-German war, 1870, vessels laden with coal were forbidden to sail from English ports to the French fleet in the North Sea. France, on the other hand, still holds by the decision in the case of “Il Volante” (an Austrian ship laden with boiae de construction from Lisbon to Messina, and captured in 1807 by the French cruiser “Etoile de Bonaparte ”). that ship’s timber and naval stores are not contiaband. Provisions of very various kinds, biscuits, cheese, wine, corn have both in England and America been held contraband (The “Commercen,” 1 Wheaton’s Reports). A ship, available for war, and sent to an enemy’s port with instructions either to sell or charter, has been condemned in England. The general subject of ships, however, belongs to the subject Neutrality. With regard to clothing, money, and unwrought metals, there are no recent decisions, but the rule would probably be applied that they may become contraband in certain circumstances. The ordinary penalty of carrying contraband is confiscation of cargo, but where the capture is only justified by special circumstances, or, as it is sometimes expressed, where the contraband is “conditional,” and where the cargo is ordinary neutral produce, and there is perfect bona fides of the owner, the ship is merely carried in for pre-emption, which means the owner’s value plus 10 per cent., with indemnity for freight and expenses of detention. Anciently, in cases of absolute contraband, both ship and cargo were forfeited; it is said Russia still does this. The right of pre-emption (droit d’achat) is stated by Lord Stowell to apply to all cargoes whatever bound for an enemy’s port; and it is settled that any attempt at fraud, as false papers, or a concealed destination, will disentitle the owners to compensation. The same circumstances occurring in the case of a cargo of absolute contraband, even where the ship does not belong to the owner of the contraband, may forfeit the ship.
It will be remembered that the blockade runners of the American civil war raised very nice questions on this point. It was impossible to prove that these vessels after leaving Nassau were not going to Matamoras in Mexico, for they had only a floating intention of “running.” The question, therefore, which came before the Supreme Court of the United States in the “Bermuda” and “Peterhoff” cases was whether the interposition of a neutral port between the neutral point of departure and the belligerent destination did protect the cargo which was admitted to be contraband There could be little doubt that the goods went straight through Texas to the Confederate States. But in several cases these cargoes were not condemned. The “Peterhoffs” cargo was army boots, artillery harness, regulation blankets, chloroform, and quinine.
Where the shipowner is innocent and does not own the cargo, he merely loses his freight and expenses. Contraband articles also involve innocent parts of a cargo in ccι fiscation when both belong to one owner. The United States and Prussia are the only powers that have chosen the bold plan of entirely renouncing by treaty between themselves the right of confiscation, for which they have substituted an unlimited right of stoppage and detention and appropriation, subject to full compensation. This is an arrangement which may probably become more common, and will of course much weaken the effects of the law of contraband. It is impossible to prevent the seizure of private property in war, but it has been suggested that the value should be at once paid over by the captor’s government to the neutral government for distribution. There is only one case in which a return cargo has been confiscated on the ground that the outward cargo was contraband, with fraudulent papers and fraudulent destination; the voyage was a long one,—to the East Indies. Where a neutral vessel carries despatches to a belligerent, as the ship has become a quasiservant of the enemy, the captor generally not only seizes the papers but confiscates the ship. Despatches from or to accredited diplomatic agents or consuls residing in a neutral country do not fall under this rule, the neutral having an interest in their safe transmission. But ignorance of the contents of despatches addressed to military officials, or unaccredited agents, will not excuse their carriage. Even where the despatches have been received through force or imposition, the English prize court holds that the carrier is liable, because his suspicions ought to have been roused. A very difficult question rose in the American civil war with regard to the searching of mail bags. If the right were renounced absolutely, all belligerent despatches would choose this safe route. It was arranged that all British mails, certified to be such, should on capture be forwarded unopened. The carriage of persons in the service of a belligerent also leads to confiscation of the ship, if it amount to an intentional assistance of the belligerent. The persons carried may be mere civilians, and the port of destination neutral. The most common case is the carriage of soldiers. The exception to this rule is the case of transport of diplomatic agents, which is generally recognized as lawful, but which in the Trent affair the United States Government repudiated.
Besides the works mentioned the following may be consulted :— Twiss, On the Rights and Duties of Nations in Time of War; Phillimore, Commentaries on International Law, iii., where the literature of the subject is fully noticed; Wheaton’s Elements of International Law; Neutrality Laws Commissioners' Report, State Papers, 71, 1871.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 6, p. 320 — signed W. C. S.
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Traffic in contraband goods; smuggling.
One who trafficks illegally.
Double bass; -- applied to any instrument of the same deep range as the stringed double bass; as, the contrabass ophicleide; the contrabass tuba or bombardon.
1. An agreement or covenant between two or more persons, in which each party binds himself to do or forbear some act, and each acquires a right to what the other promises; a mutual promise upon lawful consideration or promise upon lawful consideration or cause, which binds the parties to a performance; a bargain; a compact. Contracts are executory or executed.
2. The act by which a man and woman are betrothed, each to the other.
3. The writing which contains the agreement of parties with the terms and conditions, and which serves as a proof of the obligation.
1. To shrink; to become shorter or narrower.
2. Many bodies contract by the application of cold.
3. A hempen cord contracts by moisture.
4. To bargain; to make a mutual agreement, as between two or more persons. We have contracted for a load of flour; or we have contracted with a farmer for a quantity of provisions.
1. To draw together or nearer; to draw into a less compass, either in length or breadth; to shorten; to abridge; to narrow; to lessen; as, to contract an inclosure; to contract the faculties; to contract the period of life; to contract the sphere of action.
3. To betroth; to affiance. A contracted his daughter to B. The lady was contracted to a man of merit.
4. To draw to; to bring on; to incur; to gain. We contract vicious habits by indulgence. We contract debt by extravagance.
1. Contracted; as, a contract verb.
1. To draw together or nearer; to reduce to a less compass; to shorten, narrow, or lessen; as, to contract one's sphere of action.
3. To bring on; to incur; to acquire; as, to contract a habit; to contract a debt; to contract a disease.
4. To enter into, with mutual obligations; to make a bargain or covenant for.
6. To shorten by omitting a letter or letters or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one.
7. 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.
8. A formal writing which contains the agreement of parties, with the terms and conditions, and which serves as a proof of the obligation.
9. The act of formally betrothing a man and woman.
1. 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.
Contract
Encyclopedia Britannica
CONTRACT is a bargain or agreement enforceable by law. The law of contract occupies so large a space in all civilized systems of law, that only a few of its more leading principles can be conveniently stated here. There is a general harmony in the jurisprudence of modern nations on this subject which is not to be found in other departments of law. The following definitions are taken from the Indian Contract Act, 1872 :—
a. When one person signifies to another his willingness to do or abstain from doing anything with a view to obtaining the assent of that other to such act or abstinence, he is said to make a proposal.
δ. When the person to whom the proposal is made signifies his assent thereto, the proposal is said to be accepted. A proposal when accepted becomes a promise.
c. The person making the proposal is called the promiser, the person accepting the proposal the promisee.
d. When at the desire of the promiser, the promisee or any other person has done or abstained from doing, or does or abstains from doing, or promises to do or abstain from doing something, such act or abstinence or promise is called the consideration for the promise.
e. Every promise and every set of promises forming the consideration for each other is an agreement.
f. Promises which form the consideration or part of the consideration for each other are called reciprocal promises.
g. An agreement not enforceable by law is said to be void.
h. An agreement enforceable by law is a contract.
i. An agreement which is enforceable by law at the option of one or more of the parties thereto, but not at the option of the other or others, is a voidable contract.
j. A contract which ceases to be enforceable by law becomes void when it ceases to be enforceable....
These definitions, with some changes of expression in the direction of greater precision, are in effect the same as those which are found in English law books. The phrase “void contract,” which would be a contradiction in the Indian definitions, is frequently used in English law.
The exchange of proposals and acceptances by correspondence gives rise to some peculiar difficulties. An offer or proposal may be revoked any time before acceptance; and it is revoked when notice to that effect is given to the promiser. So much is clear and free from difficulty. But when letters containing proposals or acceptances are delayed or misdirected, it is not very easy to say whether there has been a contract or not. When A wrote to B, “I offer you -800 tods of wether fleeces, &c.,” “receiving your answer in course of post,” but misdirected the letter, which arrived late, and B’s answer accepting the offer not arriving at the expected time, A sold the goods to some one else, it was held that as the delay was caused by A’s default, it must be taken as against him that the answer did not arrive in course of post (Adams v. Lindsell, 1 B. and Ald. 681). In cases following this some of the judges seem to be inclined to hold that a proposer is bound by an acceptance being posted to him whether it reaches him or not, and others that he is not bound unless he actually receives the acceptance. An acceptance of a proposal must be unqualified, otherwise there is no contract; the introduction of a new condition by the acceptor, or a reference to something still to be done, prevents the contract from being completed. To constitute a contract the terms must be certain; e.g., an agreement to take a house, “if it were put into thorough repair, and the drawing-rooms handsomely decorated according to present style,” has been rejected as too vague. A contract of course may be concluded by mere conduct, without the exchange of a single word, and multitudes of contracts in small matters of constant occurrence are so concluded. These are called implied contracts— a phrase, however, which covers two very different things—(1) a real contract which may be inferred as a fact from the conduct of the parties, and (2) a quasi contract, in which the law will treat the parties as if they had made a contract.
Certain classes of persons are under peculiar disabilities in matters of contract, viz., infants, lunatics, and married women. 1. As a general rule at common law contracts made by an infant (a person under twenty-one years) are voidable, unless they are in some way for his benefit, and in particular for “necessaries.” By the Infants’ Relief Act, 1874, contracts for repayment of money lent to infants, or for payment of goods other than “necessaries,” are made absolutely void; and no action can be brought, even if they are ratified after full age and for a new consideration. The question what are necessaries is to be decided by the court and jury on the circumstances of the case, including particularly the rank in life of the infant. The protection of infants has been extended by the Court of Chancery to “expectant heirs” as they are called, i.e., persons who borrow money on the credit of their expectations. The principle is a survival from the times when usury was considered wrongful, and the preservation of great families a public duty, and is utterly indefensible on any other considerations. 2. A married woman, being in the eye of the law merged in her husband, cannot bind herself by contract. 3. Contracts made by a lunatic are voidable, except where his state of mind was not known to the other contracting party. The principle is extended to drunkenness. For further information as to such disabilities see under the respective headings. The general rule as to corporations is that they can only make binding contracts under their common seal, excepting in cases of “convenience almost amounting to necessity” (see Corporations).
Of the technical terms mentioned above the most important, and certainly the most characteristic, of English law is consideration. A consideration is essential to the validity of every contract unless it be made in writing under seat The meaning of the word is quite accurately expressed by a phrase used in one of the earliest cases on the subject—it is strictly a quid pro quo. Something, whether it be in the nature of an act or a forbearance, must move from one of the parties in order to support a promise made by the other. A mere promise by A to give something to B cannot be enforced unless there is some consideration “moving from B.” Such a promise the early lawyers called a nude or naked promise—in imitation of the phrase in Roman law, nudum pactum, which does not, however, mean a promise unsupported by a consideration, but a contract destitute of certain essential legal formalities. But while every contract requires a consideration, it is held that the court will not inquire into the adequacy thereof; any consideration will do. Inadequacy of consideration, however, may be important where a contract is to be set aside on the ground of fraud.
Modem English law requires no formalities to make a contract enforceable, unless in certain special cases. The ancient rule both in early English and Roman law made certain formalities essential, unless in certain special cases. The ancient rule is thus the modern exception. The exceptions to the general rule in English law are the following :—
1. Contracts within the Statute of Frauds, 29 Car. II. c. 3.—The fourth section of this important Act specifies certain classes of contracts in which “no action shall be brought” unless the agreement upon which such action shall be brought, or some memorandum or note thereof, shall be in writing and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or some other person thereunto by him lawfully authorized. Such contracts are—(1) any special promise by an executor or administrator to answer damages out of his own estate; (2) any promise to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of another person; (3) any agreement made on consideration of marriage; (4) any contract or sale of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or any interest in or concerning them; (5) any agreement that is not to be performed within the space of one year from the making thereof. The 17th section enacts that no contract for the sale of any goods, wares, or merchandize for the price of £10 sterling or upwards shall be allowed to be good, except the buyer shall first accept part of the goods so sold, and actually receive the same, or shall give something in earnest to bind the bargain or in part payment; or unless some memorandum or note in writing of the said bargain be made and signed by the parties to be charged, or their authorized agents. The difference between the two sections should be noted. Contracts under the 17th section are simply void; contracts under the 4th are not void, but they are not enforceable. The 4th section is a law of procedure, and therefore a contract of the kind specified therein validly made in a foreign country could not be enforced in England, whereas a valid contract made abroad, which would be wholly void if made in England, under the 17th section, might be enforced in England. And again, money paid under an agreement made unenforceable by section 4 could not be recovered back.
2. Contracts of corporations, already alluded to.
3. Negotiable instruments, which must, of course, be in writing.
4. Other cases in which writing is required are transfer of ships, assignments of copyright, and ratification of debts barred by the Statute of Limitations.
To contracts made by deed (i.e., under seal) the law attributes certain qualities which do not belong to simple contracts, i.e., contracts whether verbal or in writing without seal. The peculiar properties of a deed are thus described :—“It works a merger; it operates by way of estoppel; it requires no consideration to support it; it will in some cases bind the heir of the covenanter or obligor; it can only be discharged by an instrument under seal, by the judgment of a court of competent authority, or by Act of Parliament.” The language of the law-books is that from the solemnity of a deed the law itself will imply the existence of a consideration, a formula designed to bring the exceptional case of deeds within the general legal theory of consideration, and by no means to be accepted as an historical explanation. The subordinate agreements in a deed are termed covenants. The formal definition, as given in Platt on Covenants, is “an agreement between two or more persons by an instrument in writing sealed and delivered, whereby some of the parties engage, or one of them engages with the other or others of them, that some act hath or hath not been already done, or for the performance or non-performance of some specified duty.” See Deed.
An agreement is said to be void for impossibility when the thing contemplated is in itself impossible, as contrary to the course of nature, and when it is by construction of law impossible, e.g., to create a new manor. But when the thing is not in itself impossible, but is or becomes impossible in fact, an unconditional agreement is not thereby void. Thus a contract to load a full cargo of guano at a certain island does not become void by the fact that there is not enough guano on the island to make a full cargo. In a recent case (Thorn v. Lord Mayor of London) a contractor, who had undertaken to build a bridge according to specifications supplied by defendant, found it impossible to execute part of the work according to specification, and it had to be executed in another way. It was held that there was no condition that the plans should be reasonably practicable, and the plaintiff was not allowed to recover for work executed in an impossible attempt to comply with the specifications. In another case, a contractor bound himself under penalties to finish some buildings within a certain time, with any alterations and additions required by the defendants, and no extension of time was to be allowed for such alterations, unless expressly granted by defendants. It was held that the contractor could not excuse himself for non-completion within the proper time by showing that the alterations and additions made it impossible.
Besides the contracts which are void through defect of form or want of capacity in the parties, there is a large class of agreements which the law refuses to recognize on account of the character of the contemplated action. These may be reduced to three main divisions— illegal contracts, when the thing to be done is forbidden by law; immoral contracts, when the consideration belongs to the indefinite class of things recognized as immoral; and contracts, against public policy, i.e., certain wide and more or less in definite principles of government. In some cases, the act of agreement is in itself a criminal offence, for which see Conspiracy. An agreement to commit an offence, as to burn a house, or kill a man, or an agreement to do a civil injury to another, would be illegal. Promises made in consideration of illicit cohabitation in the future are void as immoral; if the consideration is illicit cohabitation in the past, it is of course no consideration, and a promise founded upon it will be void unless expressed in a deed. Of agreements which are void as being against public policy, the most important class is that of contracts in restraint of trade. The leading authority on this subject is the case of Mitchell v. Reynolds (1 Smiths Leading Cases). The law, it seems, is so jealous of the freedom of the trader, that it will not allow him to part with it on any consideration. “It is the privilege of a trader in a free country, in all matters not contrary to law, to regulate his own mode of carrying it on according to his own discretion and choice. If the law has regulated or restrained his mode of doing this, the law must be obeyed. But no power short of the general law ought to restrain his free discretion.” It has been suggested that the rule dates from a time when a covenant by a man not to exercise his own trade meant a covenant not to exercise any trade at all,—everyman being obliged to confine himself to the trade to which he had been apprenticed. At any rate, it is difficult to reconcile this protection of the individual will, carried to the point of absolutely limiting its exercise in one class of cases, with modern principles as to freedom of trade and contract. And the law itself breaks in upon its own theory by admitting that contracts which are only in partial restraint of trade may be good. A contract not to carry on the business of an ironmonger would be bad; but a contract made by the seller of an ironmonger’s business not to compete with the buyer would be good. It is held that to make such a promise binding, it must be founded on a valuable consideration, must not be unlimited as to the area over which the restriction is to extend, and must not otherwise go beyond what is reasonably necessary for the protection of the other party. On the whole, it would be simpler to leave individuals to make what contracts they please in this as in other matters. The public policy which disallows contracts in restraint of marriage depends on a different set of considerations. A contract not to marry at all is void; in one case it is described as a contract to omit a moral duty, and tending to depopulation, “the greatest of all political sins.” But apparently a contract by a widow not to marry is not void. The whole doctrine of public policy appears to have grown up out of the efforts of judges to counteract the admission of wagers in the common law as legal contracts. In their desire to avoid enforcing them in particular cases, they developed a theory of state interests of startling wideness and originality. A wager about the death of Napoleon I. was held void because it gave one party an interest in keeping the king’s enemy alive, and the other an interest in putting him to death. (See Pollock on Contracts, p. 252.)
Contracts may be vitiated by mistake, misrepresentation, fraud, undue influence, &c. Mistake, to avoid a contract, must be such that there was no real agreement at all, or that the real agreement was erroneously expressed; and money paid under a mistake as to fact may be recovered. The general rule is that relief will be given against mistake as to fact, but not against mistake in law. Contracts induced by fraud, misrepresentation, &c., are in general not void but voidable at the instance of the party injured or imposed upon.
The common law did not permit the benefit of contracts to be assigned so as to give the assignee a right of action in his own name—a right which was, however, recognized in equity. By the Judicature Act, 1873, section 6, a legal right is created in the assignee when the assignment is absolute and in writing, and notice in writing given to the debtor.
The only remedy for breach of contract given by the common law was an action for the sum certain due by the defaulter, or for damages, to be ascertained by a jury. The mere payment of damages would in many cases not be a complete satisfaction to the other party, and the Court of Chancery accordingly gave in certain cases decrees for the specific performance of the contract.
The best English works on Contract are those by Addison, Chitty, and S. Martin Leake. The Principles of Contract at Law and in Equity, by F. Pollock, is a recent work of great merit.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 6, p. 322 — signed E. R.
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Narrow; mean; selfish; as a man of a contracted soul or mind.
of Contract
In a contracted manner.
1. The state of being contracted.
2. Narrowness; meanness; excessive selfishness.
The state of being contracted; narrowness; meanness; selfishness.
Possibility of being contracted; quality of suffering contraction; as the contractibility and dilatibility of air.
Capability of being contracted; quality of being contractible; as, the contractibility and dilatability of air.
1. Capable of contraction.
2. Small air bladders, dilatable and contractible
Capable of contraction.
The quality of suffering contraction; contractibility.
Tending to contract; having the power of shortening or of drawing into smaller dimensions; as the contractile force of certain elastic bodies.
tending to contract; having the power or property of contracting, or of shrinking into shorter or smaller dimensions; as, the contractile tissues.
1. The quality or property by which bodies shrink or contract.
2. The power possessed by the fibers of living muscle of contracting or shortening.
Making or having made a contract or treaty; stipulating; as the contracting parties to a league.
Shortening or narrowing; drawing together; lessening dimensions; shrinking; making a bargain; betrothing.
of Contract
1. The act of drawing together, or shrinking; the act of shortening, narrowing or lessening extent or dimensions, by causing the parts of a body to approach nearer to each other; the state of being contracted.
2. Oil of vitriol will throw the stomach into involuntary contractions.
3. The contraction of the heart is called systole.
4. Some things induce a contraction of the nerves.
5. The act of shortening, abridging, or reducing within a narrower compass by any means. A poem may be improved by omissions or contractions.
6. In grammar, the shortening of a word, by the omission of a letter or syllable; as, cant for cannot; burst for bursted or bursten; Swedish and Danish ord, a word.
7. A contract; marriage contract. [Not used.]
8. Abbreviation.
1. The act or process of contracting, shortening, or shrinking; the state of being contracted; as, contraction of the heart, of the pupil of the eye, or of a tendion; the contraction produced by cold.
2. The process of shortening an operation.
3. The act of incurring or becoming subject to, as liabilities, obligation, debts, etc.; the process of becoming subject to; as, the contraction of a disease.
4. Something contracted or abbreviated, as a word or phrase; -- as, plenipo for plenipotentiary; crim. con. for criminal conversation, etc.
5. The shortening of a word, or of two words, by the omission of a letter or letters, or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one; as, ne'er for never; can't for can not; don't for do not; it's for it is.
6. A marriage contract.
Tending to contract; having the property or power or power of contracting.
Contrariety Roget’s Thesaurus §14
N. contrariety, contrast, foil, antithesis, oppositeness, contradiction, antagonism, clashing, repugnance, inversion, the opposite, the reverse, the inverse, the converse, the antipodes, the antithesis, the other extreme
V. be contrary, contrast with, oppose, diller toto coelo, invert, reverse, turn the tables, turn topsy-turvy, turn end for end, turn upside down, turn inside out, contradict, contravene, antagonize
Adj. contrary, contrarious, contrariant, opposite, counter, dead against, converse, reverse, opposed, antithetical, contrasted, antipodean, antagonistic, opposing, conflicting, inconsistent, contradictory, at cross purposes, negative, hostile, differing toto coelo, diametrically opposite, diametrically opposed, as opposite as black and white, as opposite as light and darkness, as opposite as fire and water, as opposite as the poles, as different as night and day, "hyperion to a satyr", quite the contrary, quite the reverse, no such thing, just the other way, tout au contraire
Adv. contrarily, contra, contrariwise, per contra, on the contrary, nay rather, vice versa, on the other hand
King James Bible KJV Bible
Berean Standard Bible BSB Bible
36 KJV and 22 BSB verses contain “CONTRA” — showing the first 20. Show all 52 verses (searchable)
And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;
And if in spite of these things you do not accept My discipline, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me,
If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;
But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—
And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:
and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity,
Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, (though it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them;)
On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the king’s command and edict were to be executed. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but their plan was overturned and the Jews overpowered those who hated them.
And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.
So your prostitution is the opposite of that of other women: No one solicited your favors, and you paid a fee instead of receiving one; so you are the very opposite!
And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.
He could see that the disciples were straining to row, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them, walking on the sea. He intended to pass by them,
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
For I will give you speech and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and they blasphemously contradicted what Paul was saying.
But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.
On the contrary, we believe it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law.
“This man is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law,” they said.
Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?
Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit here to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck.”