exchange

• IPA^(key): /ɛkstʃeɪndʒ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪndʒ

From Middle English eschaunge, borrowed from Anglo-Norman eschaunge, from Old French eschange (whence modern French échange), from the verb eschanger, from Vulgar Latin *excambiāre, present active infinitive of *excambiō (from Latin ex with Late Latin cambiō). Spelling later changed on the basis of ex- in English.

exchange (countable and uncountable, plural exchanges)

1. An act of exchanging or trading.

   All in all, it was an even exchange.

   an exchange of cattle for grain

2. A place for conducting trading.

   The stock exchange is open for trading.

3. A telephone exchange.
4. (telephony, US) The fourth through sixth digits of a ten-digit phone number (the first three before the introduction of area codes).

   The 555 exchange is reserved for use by the phone company, which is why it's often used in films.

   NPA-NXX-1234 is standard format, where NPA is the area code and NXX is the exchange.

5. A conversation.

   After an exchange with the manager, we were no wiser.

   • 2014, Ian Black, "Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis", The Guardian, 27 November 2014:

     “Why bother with the daily grind when you can go to Mosul, get paid $400 a month, get a wife – and live an Islamic way,” went an exchange between two men overheard by a fellow passenger in a taxi. Rumour has it that a woman whose husband died fighting with Isis now receives a generous widow’s pension from jihadi coffers.

6. (chess) The loss of one piece and associated capture of another
   1. (usually with "the") The loss of a relatively minor piece (typically a bishop or knight) and associated capture of the more advantageous rook
7. (obsolete) The thing given or received in return; especially, a publication exchanged for another.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

8. (biochemistry) The transfer of substances or elements like gas, amino-acids, ions etc. sometimes through a surface like a membrane.
9. (finance) The difference between the values of money in different places.

From Middle English eschaungen, from Anglo-Norman eschaungier, eschanger, from the Old French verb eschangier, eschanger (whence modern French échanger), from Vulgar Latin *excambiāre, present active infinitive of *excambiō (from Latin ex with Late Latin cambiō). Gradually displaced native Old English wrixlan, wixlan (“to change, exchange, reciprocate”) and its descendants, wrixle being one of them.

exchange (third-person singular simple present exchanges, present participle exchanging, simple past and past participle exchanged)

1. (transitive) To trade or barter.

   I'll gladly exchange my place for yours.

2. (transitive) To replace with, as a substitute.

   I'd like to exchange this shirt for one in a larger size.

   Since his arrest, the mob boss has exchanged a mansion for a jail cell.

• (trade or barter): truck, wrixle; See also Thesaurus:trade or Thesaurus:barter
• (replace with a substitute): interchange, swap; See also Thesaurus:switch

• exchange in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• exchange in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• exchange at OneLook Dictionary Search