interact
Americanverb (used without object)
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interacts,
present (3rd person singular)
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interacted,
past participle, past
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interacting
present participle
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to act one upon another.
A person's microbiome and immune system may interact in ways that promote inflammation.
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to communicate, work, or participate in an activity with someone or something: a user interacting with a computer program.
a boss who seldom interacts with employees;
a user interacting with a computer program.
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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interactsimple
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interactssimple
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have interactedperfect
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has interactedperfect
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am interactingprogressive
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are interactingprogressive
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is interactingprogressive
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have been interactingperfect progressive
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has been interactingperfect progressive
Past
-
interactedsimple
-
had interactedperfect
-
was interactingprogressive
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were interactingprogressive
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had been interactingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of interact
Explanation
Talking, dancing, playing a game — all of these activities allow you to interact with other people. To interact means to communicate and react to the people you're involved with. Some video games are called interactive because they are not static, like board games, but allow players to interact with them and direct the story. If you are talking about chemicals or medicines that interact, the presence of one affects the way the other works. If someone says that you interact well with children, it means you communicate well with them and they respond to you.
Vocabulary lists containing interact
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Ecology - Introductory
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Ecology - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“All the opportunities to interact and show our love and support to the artist, it brings everyone together,” Salazar said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
"This allows atomic nuclei to form and be stable -- which means matter, as we interact with it in the universe, can exist."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
"I observe their behaviour and they choose to interact with me. They always make the first approach."
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Businesspeople who interact with more technical collaborators often serve as the vectors who bring such jargon into the wider corporate vernacular, he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
“Only youths can interact with Holy Beings,” Wind Being said.
From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young
The Rumbler interacts with a standard police siren, which generates around 110 to 120 decibels, and amplifies that sound through its speakers in eight-second intervals.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
It's been suggested that it will call for a radical overhaul of the way every part of the public sector – from education to health and the welfare system – interacts with the private sector.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2026
To address those problems, it separated the model, or reasoning layer, from the action layer that interacts with tools, and that required managing which tools the model was authorized to use.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
Instead, the AI acts similarly to other chatbots and only interacts with Apple’s own products.
From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026
It is believed that this force is carried by another spin-1 particle, called the gluon, which interacts only with itself and with the quarks.
From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking
Carolyn Kennett, from Penzance, Cornwall, is an astro-archaeologist - studying how ancient cultures interacted with the sky.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
“A friend texted me that Anthony Jeselnik, a comedian whom I loved — but had never met nor interacted with — shouted out his love of my memoir, ‘Dirtbag, Massachusetts,’ on his podcast.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Business leaders who have interacted privately with Bardella say he has revealed little about his economic approach, leaving many to wonder if there is really any daylight between him and Le Pen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
Computer models allowed them to explore how different variables interacted and to predict changes that would be difficult to measure directly in every experiment.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
Mr. Samupindi spoke at assemblies and handed out awards, but otherwise rarely interacted with students.
From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda
"Humans are a very social species, so interacting via social media offered opportunities to alleviate boredom and join communities and develop friendships."
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
If we were to make a precise measurement of whether the photon is dwelling in the atoms, at each instant of time, we would prevent the atoms from interacting with the photon.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026
In fact, the American public includes bankers, farmers, workers, traders, builders and accountants, who together spend billions of hours interacting with the government through filling out forms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
Outside in the streets, the cosplayers enjoyed mugging for the cameras or taking selfies and laughing at themselves and others while interacting with their favorite celebrities.
From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2026
It’s one thing to be love-worthy when you are interacting with your boyfriend; it’s quite another when you act the same way with a girl you don’t know.
From "Every Day" by David Levithan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
