react
verb · noun
Simple meaning
Act against or in opposition to.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
reeaktSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɹiˈækt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Act against or in opposition to
“She reacts negatively to everything I say.”
Internetintransitive
To post a reaction (icon or emoji indicating how one feels about a posted message).
Show a response or a reaction to something
Internetintransitive
Undergo a chemical reaction; react with another substance under certain conditions
intransitive
To act in response.
noun
Internet
An emoji used to express a reaction to a post on social media.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Act against or in opposition to
Used this way, react is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“She reacts negatively to everything I say.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use react
- “She reacts negatively to everything I say.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
An electrical device used to introduce reactance into a circuit.
Participating readily in reactions.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Propulsion that results from the ejection at high velocity of a mass of gas to which the vehicle reacts with an equal and opposite momentum.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.