interface

The point of interconnection or contact between entities.

Noun

  1. The point of interconnection or contact between entities.
    • Public relations firms often serve as the interface between a company and the press.
  2. 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. The point of interconnection between systems or subsystems.
    • The data is sent over the air interface to the remote system.
  4. The connection between a user and a machine.
    • The options are selected via the user interface.
  5. 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...
  6. 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. In some languages, a block of code declaring the interface (point of interconnection) between a class and code that interacts with it.
  8. The internal surface of a coiled protein (compare exoface).

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁én Proto-Indo-European *h₁entér Proto-Italic *n̥ter Latin inter Latin inter-bor. English inter- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁k- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁kyéti Proto-Italic *θakjō Proto-Italic *fakjō Late Latin faciō Proto-Italic *-jēs Late Latin -iēs Late Latin faciēs Late Latin facia Old French facebor. Middle English face English face English interface From inter- (“between”) + face (“shape, figure, form”).

Forms

interfaces

Hyponyms

command-line interface user interface abstract interface application programming interface generic interface marker interface network interface programming interface

Derived

10-foot user interface basic rate interface biointerface character user interface command line interface concrete interface fluent interface Gillham interface graphical user interface haptic interface heterointerface homointerface human interface device interfaceable interface hypothesis interfaceless interface segregation principle interfacial marker interface pattern nanointerface natural user interface network interface card network interface controller neurointerface

Verb

  1. To construct an interface for.
  2. To connect through an interface.
  3. To serve as an interface.
  4. To meet for discussion.
    • Let's interface on Wednesday.

Forms

interfaces interfacing interfaced

Related

mixin trait