Meaning & use
inter-company
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a nounbusiness
Happening or existing between two or more different companies.
Grammar: Comes before a noun and is not used after a verb: 'inter-company trade', not 'the trade is inter-company'.
Patterns
- inter-company loans
- inter-company trade
- inter-company transactions
The group arranged inter-company loans to move cash between its divisions.
Inter-company trade between the two firms grew by ten percent last year.
Accountants must record every inter-company transaction carefully.
adjectivebefore a nounbusiness
Involving communication or competition between different companies in the same industry.
Grammar: Often used with words like 'communication', 'rivalry' or 'cooperation'.
Patterns
- inter-company rivalry
- inter-company communication
- inter-company cooperation
Inter-company rivalry kept prices low for customers.
The conference encouraged inter-company communication among small suppliers.
Common combinations
- inter-company loans
- The parent company made inter-company loans to its overseas branches.
- inter-company transactions
- All inter-company transactions must be listed in the report.
- inter-company trade
- Inter-company trade makes up a large part of their business.
- inter-company rivalry
- Inter-company rivalry can slow down an entire industry.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cross-company
- Cross-company is similar but often stresses movement across companies, as in 'cross-company teams'.
- interfirm
- Interfirm is a more formal, less common term used mainly in economics.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: inter-company or intra-company?
inter-company vs intra-company
'Inter-company' means between different companies, while 'intra-company' means within a single company.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'inter-company' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Inter-company' describes something between different companies, so sentence 1 is correct. Sentence 2 describes something inside one company, sentence 3 uses it incorrectly after 'is', and sentence 4 uses it as an adverb, which it is not.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “inter-company”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.