"Contact details" is a plural noun phrase in English denoting the information required to communicate with a person or an organization, typically including items such as a telephone number, email address, or postal address. It functions as a fixed, plural-only expression (comparable in form to "contact information").
Definitions in reference works
- Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: "the information that you need in order to communicate with someone, such as a telephone number or an email address."
- Collins English Dictionary: "the information required to contact someone, such as an address or telephone number."
- Wiktionary: "information on how to contact a person or entity, typically including a telephone number, address, etc."
- Merriam-Webster defines the closely related term "contact information" as "personal information (such as a phone number or email address) that enables a person to get in communication with another," and records a first known use of that form in 1969.
Grammar and usage
The expression is generally treated as a plural noun, and in ordinary usage it is uncountable in the sense that one does not normally speak of "a contact detail" in reference to an individual item, although the singular "contact detail" does occur. It appears chiefly in administrative, commercial, and legal contexts — on business cards, letterheads, websites, application forms, and contracts — where a party is asked to supply the particulars by which they can be reached.
Related concepts
"Contact details" overlaps substantially with the broader concept of "contact information," and in legal and data-protection contexts it is often classified as personal data or personally identifiable information. Because such details can identify or locate an individual, their collection and disclosure are frequently subject to privacy regulation, and organizations commonly advise against sharing private contact details publicly.
Lexicographic status
The term is well attested in major monolingual dictionaries and appears as a standard collocation (noun + noun) in English-language teaching resources. It also has direct translational equivalents in numerous languages, including German (Kontaktdaten), French (coordonnées), Spanish (datos de contacto), Finnish (yhteystiedot), and Japanese (連絡先), indicating that the underlying concept is widely lexicalized. It does not, however, have a dedicated article in general encyclopedias such as Wikipedia; its coverage is primarily lexicographic rather than encyclopedic, and it is best understood as an everyday descriptive term rather than a discrete technical or academic concept.
