exchange

Meanings

Noun

• An act of exchanging or trading.
• A place for conducting trading.
• A telephone exchange.
• The fourth through sixth digits of a ten-digit phone number (the first three before the introduction of area codes).
• A conversation.
• The loss of one piece and associated capture of another
• The thing given or received in return; especially, a publication exchanged for another.
• The transfer of substances or elements like gas, amino-acids, ions etc. sometimes through a surface like a membrane.
• The difference between the values of money in different places.
• Short form of exchange of contracts

Verb

• To trade or barter.
• To replace with, as a substitute.
• Short form of exchange contracts

Origin

• 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.
• From Middle English eschaungen, from Anglo-Norman eschaungier, Old French 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 and its descendants, wrixle being one of them.