- incur
- incur, contract, catch are comparable when they mean to bring upon oneself something unpleasant, onerous, or injurious.Incur may or may not imply foreknowledge of what is to happen{
incur a debt
}{incur criticism
}but it usually implies responsibility for the acts which bring about what is incurred{he simply couldn't bring himself to incur the loss of face involved in admitting that he didn't know enough English— Durdin
}{an environment containing all the classic elements for incurring mental fatigue— Armstrong
}Contract carries a stronger implication than incur of acquirement, but it is equally inexplicit in its lack of clear suggestion as to whether the acquisition derives from intention or accident{had contracted con-siderable debts in granting loans to the king— Cruickshanks
}{contract a disease
}{contract bad habits
}But contract often distinctively implies a meeting between two things that permits either an interchange of qualities{each from each contract new strength and light— Pope
}or a transmission of something from one to the other{they say that sherry ought to live for a while in an old brandy cask, so as to contract a certain convincing quality from the cask's genial timbers— Montague
}Catch, the least literary and most ordinary of these terms, usually implies infection or something analogous to it{catch a heavy cold
}{religion, in point of fact, is seldom taught at all; it is caught, by contact with someone who has it— Inge
}Analogous words: *get, obtain, acquire
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
