A contraction is an abbreviated ways of writing something in braille. For example, in English contracted (grade 2) braille, the word "the" is written as a single cell (dots 2346), rather than as the three cells that normally represent the individual letters. That same single-cell contraction is used in most, but not all, cases where the letters "t-h-e" occur within a word, as in "chrysanthemum." It is not used, however, in certain instances such as in the compound word "sweetheart" where the contraction crosses a syllable

Contractions sometimes use ordinary letters or other symbols, relying upon context clues to keep the meaning clear. For example, in English contracted braille, the contraction for the letters "ea" is the same cell (dot 2) that normally represents a comma -- and for that reason, the "ea" is never used when it comes at the end of a word (as in "Chelsea").

Many contractions consist of several cells in braille.

In some languages, contractions can represent not only groups of letters and whole words but even groups of words. (Multi-word contractions are often called "locutions.")