interact
Americanverb (used without object)
-
interacts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
interacted,
past participle, past
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interacting
present participle
-
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
-
has interactedperfect
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am interactingprogressive
-
are interactingprogressive
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is interactingprogressive
-
have been interactingperfect progressive
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has been interactingperfect progressive
Past
-
interactedsimple
-
had interactedperfect
-
was interactingprogressive
-
were interactingprogressive
-
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:
Phonons also interact readily with both solid-state spins and electromagnetic fields.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 12, 2026
Anyone wearing smart glasses can take photos, film videos, listen to music, make phone calls, translate text or interact with an AI assistant, with sales now hitting the millions.
From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026
Our study did not require parents and children to interact directly; it was an online, remote survey that each person completed separately and independently.
From Slate ● Sep. 11, 2026
What’s more, the emissions scenarios it includes are not forecasts but rather pathways to understand how human activity, industry and policy could interact between now and the end of the century.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026
Each week we study the ways in which the students in the group interact with one another, how they respond to anger, jealousy, attention.
From "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom
The production is being promoted as “challenging the status quo of how commercial theater interacts with nonprofit institutions,” a worthy goal, if a possibly quixotic one.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
Researchers would need to move beyond strictly linear models and examine processes that happen simultaneously, influence one another, and change as a person interacts with the surrounding world.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 25, 2026
He said: "I think an emerging unity candidate should have on his or her agenda reform of Fifa, and perhaps even reform of the president's role and how it interacts with those things."
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
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
I studied the floor and mumbled, “The analysis of how something about the census something interacts with the something and pertains to something.”
From "Liar, Liar" by Gary Paulsen
Willis explained the audition process, saying they had to do a "chemistry test" to see how they interacted as a group.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
Broadly speaking, the recommendations are based on what the machine knows about you: what you've interacted with or posted about online, or information such as your age, job, location and marital status.
From Barron's ● Sep. 9, 2026
These ancient tracks can reveal how extinct human relatives were built, how they moved, where they spent their time, and even how they may have interacted with one another.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
"Previous theories could only describe these systems when the particles interacted relatively weakly. Our new approach lets us explore what happens when those interactions become much stronger, which is where the most interesting physics emerges."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 21, 2026
Moss scrambled up the stairs after him, shoving his way past people he’d never interacted with before at school.
From "Anger Is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro
As we spend more of our working lives interacting with artificial intelligence, our chats are becoming part of our work product—a record of our research, brainstorming, problem-solving and decision-making.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
"I wouldn't say they enjoy interacting with humans," reflected Heide-Jorgensen, noting "they do it under protest."
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
Forecasters know that the conditions are ripe for storms to form, with warm humid air across the UK interacting with a zone of colder air pushing in from the west, higher in the atmosphere.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Scientists had previously considered such droplets unlikely to form in strongly interacting Bose-Fermi systems.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 21, 2026
“I am still figuring out the logistics of interacting with physical things,” Marco says, flattening the raven’s wings and letting it limp down the length of his arm.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
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.
