transaction
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
the act of buying or selling something, or an exchange of money for goods.
an instance of buying or selling; a business deal or the exchange of funds, goods, or services.
Simple“The entire transaction took only a few seconds using the mobile app.”
In context“The bank monitors every financial transaction for suspicious activity to prevent international money laundering and fraud.”
- 02 C1 Advanced
a set of computer operations that must all happen together or not at all.
an atomic sequence of operations in a database or system that is treated as a single unit of work.
Simple“If the power goes out during the transaction, the database will undo the partial changes.”
In context“To ensure data integrity, the system wraps the inventory update and the payment processing into a single database transaction.”
UsageOften used in the context of database management and ACID properties.
Synonymsoperationunit of work - 03 C1 Advanced
an instance of people communicating or behaving toward each other.
a communicative action or social interaction between two or more people.
Simple“The psychologist studied the transaction between the mother and her child.”
In context“The study focuses on the linguistic transactions that occur in high-stakes corporate negotiations.”
Synonyms - 04 C2 Proficiency
the official written records of a meeting or a professional group.
the published records of the proceedings of a learned society or professional organisation.
Simple“You can find the research paper in the latest Transactions of the Royal Society.”
In context“The library maintains an extensive archive of the society's annual transactions dating back to the nineteenth century.”
UsageAlmost always used in the plural form 'transactions'.
Synonyms
Usage transaction cost
“Criminals like cash because unlike card transactions or bank transfers, it is largely untraceable, which makes it useful for both transactions and money laundering.”
“That made admission less a transaction than a delicate equation of geography, endurance and luck.”
Borrowed from Middle French transaction, from Old French transaccion, from Late Latin transactio.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.