# transaction

/tɹænˈzækʃən/ (US) · /tɹænsˈækʃən/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/transaction
Updated: 2026-07-22

## Senses

### 1. business exchange

noun · CEFR B2

the act of buying or selling something, or an exchange of money for goods.

For teachers: an instance of buying or selling; a business deal or the exchange of funds, goods, or services.

- The entire transaction took only a few seconds using the mobile app.
- The bank monitors every financial transaction for suspicious activity to prevent international money laundering and fraud.

### 2. computing

noun · CEFR C1 · Technical

a set of computer operations that must all happen together or not at all.

For teachers: an atomic sequence of operations in a database or system that is treated as a single unit of work.

- If the power goes out during the transaction, the database will undo the partial changes.
- To ensure data integrity, the system wraps the inventory update and the payment processing into a single database transaction.

Usage: Often used in the context of database management and ACID properties.

### 3. social interaction

noun · CEFR C1 · Academic

an instance of people communicating or behaving toward each other.

For teachers: a communicative action or social interaction between two or more people.

- The psychologist studied the transaction between the mother and her child.
- The study focuses on the linguistic transactions that occur in high-stakes corporate negotiations.

### 4. published records

noun · CEFR C2 · Formal

the official written records of a meeting or a professional group.

For teachers: the published records of the proceedings of a learned society or professional organisation.

- You can find the research paper in the latest Transactions of the Royal Society.
- The library maintains an extensive archive of the society's annual transactions dating back to the nineteenth century.

Usage: Almost always used in the plural form 'transactions'.

## Examples

- The bank charges a small fee for every transaction.
- The online system records every transaction automatically to ensure that no financial data is lost during the checkout process.
- Modern database management relies on the atomicity of each transaction, ensuring that either the entire operation succeeds or no changes are applied to the ledger at all.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.