intervention

[in-ter-ven-shuhn]

noun

1. the act or fact of coming or occurring between two people, things, or times.

   Squabbling siblings generally work things out themselves, but this fight called for parental intervention.

   Even the intervention of 20 years hadn’t erased their mutual dislike.

2. interposition or interference of one state in the affairs of another.

   The UN’s prohibition of armed intervention in the civil war can easily be criticized as antihumanitarian.

3. a planned confrontation of someone engaging in self-destructive behavior, such as substance abuse, to convince them to seek treatment.

   She thought her drinking was a well-kept secret until she came home to find six of her siblings and friends ready to conduct an intervention.

4. Education.,  a targeted short-term teaching strategy for students with specific needs.

   Reading interventions kept several of her students from having to switch to remedial classes.

5. Medicine/Medical.,  a treatment, procedure, or other action taken to prevent or treat disease, or to improve health in other ways.

   The patient has responded well to nonpharmacological interventions for high blood pressure.

intervention

/ ˌɪntəˈvɛnʃən /

noun

1. the act of intervening

2. any interference in the affairs of others, esp by one state in the affairs of another

3. economics the action of a central bank in supporting the international value of a currency by buying large quantities of the currency to keep the price up

4. commerce the action of the EU in buying up surplus produce when the market price drops to a certain value

Other Word Forms

• interventional adjective
• interventionary adjective
• prointervention adjective
• reintervention noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of intervention¹

First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Late Latin interventiōn-, stem of interventiō “interruption, occurrence”; equivalent to intervene + -tion

Example Sentences

But by the time of Hillquit’s campaign, the American left was already bitterly divided over U.S. intervention in World War I, which Hillquit and most of the SPA strongly opposed.

Read more on Salon

Argentines fear a peso devaluation or depreciation after the vote despite US intervention.

Read more on Barron's

"But human intervention, mostly groundwater extraction, makes it happen much faster."

Read more on Science Daily

On at least one occasion in nearby Downey, a citizen’s intervention had some effect.

Read more on Salon

Their strong showing in the Buenos Aires provincial election last month drove a selloff in the peso, prompting the U.S. intervention.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• interference 
• mediation