Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or process of joining or the condition of being joined.
  • noun A place where two things join or meet, especially a place where two roads or railway routes come together and one terminates.
  • noun A transition layer or boundary between two different materials or between physically different regions in a single material, especially.
  • noun A connection between conductors or sections of a transmission line.
  • noun The interface between two different semiconductor regions in a semiconductor device.
  • noun A mechanical or alloyed contact between different metals or other materials, as in a thermocouple.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act or operation of joining; the state of being joined; union; combination; coalition: as, the junction of two armies or detachments.
  • noun A place or point of union or meeting; especially, the point or locality where two or more lines of any kind come into union: as, a town
  • noun Synonyms Connection, etc. See union.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of joining, or the state of being joined; union; combination; coalition
  • noun The place or point of union, meeting, or junction; specifically, the place where two or more lines of railway meet or cross.
  • noun (Boilers) a covering or break-join plate riveted to and uniting the edges of sheets which make a butt joint.
  • noun (Railroads) the switch, or movable, rails, connecting one line of track with another.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of joining, or the state of being joined.
  • noun A place where two things meet, especially where two roads meet.
  • noun The boundary between two physically different materials, especially between conductors, semiconductors, or metals.
  • noun nautical The place where a distributary departs from the main stream.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the shape or manner in which things come together and a connection is made
  • noun the state of being joined together
  • noun something that joins or connects
  • noun an act of joining or adjoining things
  • noun the place where two or more things come together

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin iūnctiō, iūnctiōn-, from iūnctus, past participle of iungere, to join; see yeug- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin iūnctiō ("union, joining, uniting"), from iungō ("join, attach together").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word junction.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Online Dictionary. He used the device as a junction between the branch circuit and the main power lines.

    October 7, 2010