Interaction

How to spell interaction

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce interaction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interaction mean?

1. nounReciprocal action or influence in which two or more people or things affect each other.

Interaction in a sentence

• The survey measured every interaction between staff and customers.

• The drug label warns of a dangerous interaction with alcohol.

Where does interaction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Interaction is built from the Latin prefix inter-, meaning 'between' or 'among', joined to the root behind 'action', which traces back to the Latin verb agere, meaning 'to do, drive, or set in motion'. The noun 'action' came into English through Old French in the 1300s from the Latin actio, 'a doing'. The compound 'interaction' is a much later, more analytical coinage, appearing in English around the early 1800s to describe how two or more things mutually act upon each other. It grew especially useful in the sciences, where physicists and chemists needed a precise word for forces and substances affecting one another, before spreading into everyday and social use. The spelling is mercifully regular once you see its parts, though writers sometimes hesitate over the doubled vowel where inter- meets act, which is simply two separate building blocks sitting side by side.

How the word is built

• inter- (between, among)
• act (from Latin agere: to do, drive)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)