Other forms: transactions
A transaction is one complete piece of business: money goes one way, goods or a service go the other, and it is finished. Tapping a card for a coffee; a bank statement with every transaction of the month set out in a column.
It covers the big ones as well — a property transaction, a cash transaction, a transaction fee taken off the top. In computing, a database transaction is a set of changes that all succeed together or all fail together, so a half-finished transfer cannot be left lying about. The adjective transactional carries a chill: a transactional friendship is one where both people are keeping score. The verb transact is stiff and rare; in ordinary speech you do business or make a payment.
1nountransactionOne completed act of buying, selling or exchanging — money one way, goods or a service the other.
“The shop keeps a record of every transaction.”
synonyms: deal, payment
2nouncomputingIn computing, a set of changes to stored data treated as one unit, so that either all of it happens or none of it does.
“The transaction was rolled back when the connection dropped.”
transaction is a piece of business.
Also accepted in games: payment
Transaction reached English through Middle French transaction and Old French transaccion from Latin transactio, built on trans-, the across of transport and translate. The root behind the whole family is Proto-Indo-European *terh₂-. A transaction is business carried the whole way across to its end.
Proto-Indo-European
*terh₂-
Latin
transactio
Old French
transaccion
Middle French
transaction
English, today
transaction
Middle French transaction, from Old French transaccion, from Latin transactio. by surface analysis, trans- + action.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA