interface

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See also: interfacé

English

Etymology

From inter- (“between”) +‎ face (“shape, figure, form”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈɪntəfeɪs/
    • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈɪn(t)ɚˌfeɪs/
  • Hyphenation: inter‧face
  • Rhymes: -eɪs

Noun

interface (plural interfaces)

  1. The point of interconnection or contact between entities.
    Public relations firms often serve as the interface between a company and the press.
  2. (chemistry, physics) A thin layer or boundary between different substances or two phases of a single substance.
    If water and oil are mixed together, they tend to separate, and at equilibrium they are in different strata with an oil-water interface in between.
    The surface of a lake is a water-air interface.
  3. (computing) The point of interconnection between systems or subsystems.
    The data is sent over the air interface to the remote system.
  4. (computing) The connection between a user and a machine.
    The options are selected via the user interface.
  5. (computing, object-oriented programming) The connection between parts of software; also the public or published sections of an object or module,
    This interface is implemented by several Java classes.
    Traits are somewhat between an interface and a mixin, as an interface contains only method signatures, while a trait includes also the full method definitions; on the other side mixins include method definitions, but they can also carry state through attributes, while traits usually don't.
  6. (computing, object-oriented programming) In object-oriented programming, a piece of code defining a set of operations that other code must implement.
    The Audio and Video classes both implement the IPlayable interface.
  7. (object-oriented programming) In some languages, a block of code declaring the interface (point of interconnection) between a class and code that interacts with it.
  8. (biochemistry) The internal surface of a coiled protein (compare exoface).

Hyponyms

(computing) connection between a user and a machine
(computing, OOP) connection between parts of software

Derived terms

note, some terms may be hyponyms too - this Wiktionarian was too sloppy to sort them. Sucks, don't it?

Descendants

Translations

References

Verb

interface (third-person singular simple present interfaces, present participle interfacing, simple past and past participle interfaced)

  1. (transitive) To construct an interface for.
  2. (transitive, intransitive) To connect through an interface.
  3. (intransitive) To serve as an interface.
  4. (business, intransitive) To meet for discussion.
    Let's interface on Wednesday.

Translations

See also

Anagrams

French

Pronunciation

Noun

interface f (plural interfaces)

  1. interface
  2. (object-oriented programming) interface

Verb

interface

  1. inflection of interfacer:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English interface.

Pronunciation

 

  • Hyphenation: in‧ter‧fa‧ce

Noun

interface f or m (plural interfaces)

  1. interface (point of interconnection between entities)
  2. (computing) interface (point of interconnection between systems or subsystems)
  3. (computing) interface (connection between a user and a machine)
  4. (object-oriented programming) interface (piece of code defining a set of operations that other code must implement)

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:interface.

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