Other forms: communications
Communication is the whole business of sharing information between people. Good communication, communication skills, a breakdown in communication.
It is the transfer of meaning rather than of words, which is why saying something is not the same as communicating it — the message is what arrives, not what was sent. Communications in the plural means the systems: roads, cables, networks. Note that the Latin means to make common.
1nouncommunicationThe sharing of information between people.
“Good communication between doctors and nurses is vital in a busy hospital.”
2nounsystemsThe systems that carry messages.
“The storm cut off all communications, including phone lines and the internet.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
communication is an exchange of meaning.
Latin communicatio comes from communicare, to share, from communis, common. Community and common come from the same sharing.
Middle English
communicacion
English, today
communication
Built from
From Middle English communicacion. Middle English comunicacioun, communicacion (“discussion, association”), from Old French communicacion, from Latin commūnicātiōnem, accusative singular of commūnicātiō (“imparting, communicating”), from commūnicō (“to share, to impart”). Morphologically communicate + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA