ENGLISH
REFERENCE

transaction

n.
US //tɹænˈzækʃən// UK //tɹænsˈækʃən// trans·ac·tion
  1. 1 business exchange (n.)
    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.

    Example

    The entire transaction took only a few seconds using the mobile app.

    Example

    The bank monitors every financial transaction for suspicious activity to prevent international money laundering and fraud.
  2. 2 computing (n.)
    C1 Advanced Technical Computing

    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.

    Example

    If the power goes out during the transaction, the database will undo the partial changes.

    Example

    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.
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  1. 3 social interaction (n.)
    C1 Advanced Academic

    an instance of people communicating or behaving toward each other.

    a communicative action or social interaction between two or more people.

    Example

    The psychologist studied the transaction between the mother and her child.

    Example

    The study focuses on the linguistic transactions that occur in high-stakes corporate negotiations.
  2. 4 published records (n.)
    C2 Proficiency Formal

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

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

    Example

    You can find the research paper in the latest Transactions of the Royal Society.

    Example

    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'.
Origin

Borrowed from Middle French transaction, from Old French transaccion, from Late Latin transactio.

Word family

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