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Interrupt vs Preempt - What's the difference?

interrupt | preempt |

As verbs the difference between interrupt and preempt

is that interrupt is to disturb or halt an ongoing process or action by interfering suddenly while preempt is to appropriate something (before someone else does.

As a noun interrupt

is an event that causes a computer to temporarily cease what it was doing and attend to a condition.

interrupt

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To disturb or halt an ongoing process or action by interfering suddenly.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Do not interrupt me in my course.
  • * , chapter=3
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.}}
  • To divide; to separate; to break the monotony of.
  • The evenness of the road was not interrupted by a single hill.
  • (computing) To assert to a computer that an exceptional condition must be handled.
  • Antonyms

    * continue * resume

    Noun

    (wikipedia interrupt) (en noun)
  • (computing) An event that causes a computer to temporarily cease what it was doing and attend to a condition
  • The interrupt caused the packet handler routine to run.

    Derived terms

    * hardware interrupt * interrupt handler * non-maskable interrupt, NMI * software interrupt

    preempt

    English

    Alternative forms

    * pre-empt *

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • to appropriate something (before someone else does)
  • to displace something, or take precedence over something
  • (bridge) to make a preemptive bid at bridge
  • Derived terms

    * preemptive * preemptor * preemptory