interchange

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English enterchaungen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French entrechangier (“to exchange”),^[5][3][6][2] formed from entre- (“between”), from Latin inter-, and changier (“to change”).^[5][3][6] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the mid-12th century, meaning to exchange and to alternate.^[7] The English spelling was later altered to inter- after Latin.^[8][9][10] The noun, first enterchaunge, is partly borrowed from Old French entrechange and partly formed from the verb;^[3][11][5] the Anglo-Norman noun dates from about 1170.^[7] Both go back to change.^[3][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To exchange things with each other; to give and receive in turn: about 1374, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, where the lovers exchange rings.^[5][2][4]

Semantic evolution

Chaucer also used the verb, in his Boethius, for putting each of two things in the place of the other.^[5] From 1483 it could mean to alternate; from 1561 it also meant to make things follow by turns.^[5] Etymonline dates the noun to the early 15th century,^[3] while the OED and Barnhart give 1548 for the act of reciprocal exchange;^[5][4] the sense of alternation followed in the 1550s,^[5][3] and Johnson (1755) quoted Milton's "sweet interchange of hill and valley".^[13] The railway sense of passing between lines appears in 1887, and the road junction where traffic streams don't cross in 1944, first in the Baltimore Sun.^[5][3]

Timeline

• c. 1374 – verb, to exchange with each other; to put each in the other's place.^[5][2]
• 1483 – verb, to alternate.^[5]
• 1548 – noun, reciprocal exchange.^[5][4]
• 1559 – noun, alternation.^[5]
• 1887 – passage between railway lines.^[5]
• 1927 – noun, in biology, exchange of segments between chromosomes.^[5]
• 1944 – noun, a road junction with separate levels.^[5][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put each of two things in the other's place; to swap: The mechanic interchanged the front and rear tyres.^[8][14][5]
2. To give and receive things mutually; to exchange: The two schools interchange teachers every spring.^[8][5]
3. To change places with each other; to alternate.^[14][8][5]

Noun

1. An act of exchanging, or of giving and receiving mutually.^[14][8][5]
2. A road junction with roads on different levels, built so that streams of traffic don't cross.^[14][5]
3. (archaic) Alternation; succession by turns.^[8][5]

Word family

• interchanger
• preinterchange

Related words

• change
• exchange
• interchangeable

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins