Interchange

Part of speech: verb, noun

Pronunciation: /ɪntə(ɹ)ˈtʃeɪndʒ/

Definitions

1. A place where highways or roads cross and vehicles can change from one route to another, or the act of exchanging things between people
2. A point where different routes converge and enable vehicles to switch directions, alongside the action of exchanging items or information between parties
3. A junction designed to allow vehicles to move from one road to another smoothly ; the process of giving and receiving things or information between people or groups

Etymology: The word is built from two plain English parts: "inter-", a prefix meaning "between" or "among," and "change." Its direct ancestor was the Old French "entrechange," which combined the same Latin-derived prefix with "change," so the English word is a compound assembled from material that was already familiar in medieval French. Its core sense is simply "a change made between parties," that is, an exchange, and the traffic meaning came later as an extension of that idea. The exchange sense is the older of the two. A road-junction use grew from it: a place where routes "exchange" vehicles, letting traffic pass from one road to another. The word's structure does most of the explaining here, since a motorway interchange is literally a point where one road changes over to another.

Synonyms: swap, exchange, trade, switch, replace

Antonyms: retain, keep, hold, maintain, preserve