Definition of "interact"

interact

/ɪn.təˈɹækt/

verb
third-person singular simple present interacts, present participle interacting, simple past and past participle interacted
1. (intransitive) To act upon each other.
  1. (of people) To engage in communication and other shared activities (with someone).
  2. (of two or more things) To affect each other.
    Quotations
    The fortunes of the master and the servant, intimately interacting, rose together. The Baron’s secret skill had given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn, as time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more keys to more and more back doors.
    1921, Lytton Strachey, chapter 3, in Queen Victoria,‎, London: Collins, published 1958, page 69
    It is now known that many pairs of organic phosphate insecticides are highly dangerous, the toxicity being stepped up or “potentiated” through the combined action. […] Residues well within the legally permissible limits may interact.
    1962, Rachel Carson, chapter 3, in Silent Spring‎, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pages 31–32
noun
plural interacts
1. (dated) A short act or piece between others, as in a play; a break between acts.
  Quotations
  […] the flight of time is best indicated by an interact. When the curtain is down, the action on the stage remains, as it were, in suspense. The audience lets its attention revert to the affairs of real life; and it is quite willing, when the mimic world is once more revealed, to suppose that any reasonable space of time has elapsed […]
  1912, William Archer, London: Chapman & Hall, Chapter 8, pp. 108-109
  The play gives detailed descriptions of the instruments used in the interact music […]
  1980, Mary Chan, Music in the Theatre of Ben Jonson‎, Oxford: Clarendon, Part 1, Chapter 1, p. 15
2. (obsolete) Intermediate employment or time.
  Quotations
  Play, in good company, is only play, and not gaming; not deep, and consequently not dangerous nor dishonourable. It is only the inter-acts of other amusements.
  1750, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, Letters Written
3. (social sciences) A pair or series of acts involving more than one person.
  Quotations
  Inasmuch as it is impossible to analyze the contents of an entire interpersonal relationship, it is helpful to conceptualize a given communication event as consisting of a series of subevents. Any one subevent may be pulled out as a basic unit for analysis in the study of interpersonal communication; this basic unit may then be called an interact. […] each interact is a distinctive attempt to conceal, repeat, or disclose information and/or to influence the relationship.
  1975, Ralph Webb, Jr., chapter 1, in Interpersonal Speech Communication: Principles and Practices‎, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pages 23–24
  As they listened to groups communicate, Fisher and his coworkers noted what each group member said (labeled a speech act) and how the next person responded. This pairing of speech acts is called an interact.
  1991, Michael Z. Hackman, Craig E. Johnson, chapter 6, in Leadership: A Communication Perspective‎, Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, page 123

Definition of "interact"

interact

verb

Quotations

noun

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations