Contribute Permissions : View, add, update and delete list items and documents.
Edit Permissions - View, add, update and delete list items and documents along with Add, Edit and delete Lists.

Both edit and contribute are one and same. The key difference is that contribute lets the user to add, edit, delete items in list. But ‘edit’ rights gives the ‘Manage Lists’ permissions, whcih on top of Add, edit and delete the records, the user can share the list, manage views, delete columns and public views.