interaction
Pluralinteractions
- 1A conversation or other exchange that takes place between two or more people.
A simple interaction with a stranger on the train brightened her whole day.
Teachers value daily interaction with their students as a chance to build trust.
Similarexchange, encounter, contact, communication, conversation
Note
Applied to people, the word can count single encounters or name a whole quality of contact. An interaction is one exchange, often brief. Uncountable interaction is the ongoing business of dealing with others, as in staff interaction with customers, judged by whether people are polite, chatty, even humorous. The between/with choice of the mutual-effect sense carries over unchanged.
- 2A situation in which two or more objects or events act upon one another to produce a new effect, or the effect that results.
The interaction between the two chemicals produced a bright flame.
Gravitational interactions between the planets gradually shape their orbits.
Similarinterplay, reaction, interrelation
Note
The preposition changes the picture. Between treats the parties as equals acting on each other, as in interactions between different medications. With puts one party in front and the other as what it meets: human interaction with machines, a train's interaction with lineside signals. In the plural it usually counts specific cases, often in a warning. Singular and uncountable, it names mutual influence in general.
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Origin
Borrowed from the Medieval Latin word "interāctiō."