interlace
Americanverb (used without object)
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interlaces,
present (3rd person singular)
-
interlaced,
past participle, past
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interlacing
present participle
verb (used with object)
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interlaces,
present (3rd person singular)
-
interlaced,
past participle, past
-
interlacing
present participle
-
to unite or arrange (threads, strips, parts, branches, etc.) so as to intercross one another, passing alternately over and under; intertwine.
-
to mingle; blend.
-
to diversify, as with threads woven in.
-
to intersperse; intermingle.
She interlaced her lecture on Schubert with some of his songs.
verb
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to join together (patterns, fingers, etc) by crossing, as if woven; intertwine
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(tr) to mingle or blend in an intricate way
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to change the pattern of; diversify; intersperse
to interlace a speech with humour
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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interlacesimple
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interlacessimple
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have interlacedperfect
-
has interlacedperfect
-
am interlacingprogressive
-
are interlacingprogressive
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is interlacingprogressive
-
have been interlacingperfect progressive
-
has been interlacingperfect progressive
Past
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interlacedsimple
-
had interlacedperfect
-
was interlacingprogressive
-
were interlacingprogressive
-
had been interlacingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of interlace
1325–75; inter- + lace; replacing Middle English entrelacen < Middle French en-trelacer
Explanation
To interlace is to weave, tangle, or twist things together. When you hold hands with someone, the two of you interlace your fingers. When you do sit ups, you interlace your fingers behind your neck and bend your knees, and if you learn how to make a basket, you'll interlace strips of rattan reeds or willow branches. You can also use this adjective to mean "intersperse," as when you write a short story and attempt to interlace dialogue between paragraphs describing the action. Interlace combines inter-, "between" and the verb lace, "fasten, entwine, or braid."
Vocabulary lists containing interlace
You Bring the Distant Near
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Will Grayson, Will Grayson
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Plaid, checked and polka-dotted textiles sewn into zigzagging, overlapped “Reconstructions” shook up the usual interlace produced by a conventional textile loom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2023
I reach for Michael's hand and interlace our fingers.
From Salon ● Feb. 13, 2022
The totems interlace fabric, twine and what sometimes appear to be animal or human organs.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 28, 2022
On their way out of a spider’s bottom, the protein building blocks in silk, called spidroins, fold themselves and interlace, creating a highly organized structure without guidance from any outside force.
From New York Times ● Nov. 4, 2020
Trying to interlace, like a clutched desperate prayer, but again, I feel like the hands I am lacing are not my own, like I have borrowed them from a twelve-fingered monster.
From "The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson
The record, which interlaces experimental production with Afro-Colombian musical roots, references in its name the 2015 Miss Universe pageant debacle, when Steve Harvey erroneously declared Miss Colombia the winner instead of Miss Philippines.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 6, 2022
Jason Elliott, Newsom’s top housing advisor, said the governor’s budget interlaces housing, cost-of-living and climate policies to simultaneously address California’s top issues.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 13, 2022
Moss interlaces episodes from the past with a present timeline in which she is suffering from a mysterious and bloody medical condition whose eventual diagnosis necessitates a hysterectomy, followed by a complicated recovery.
From New York Times ● Nov. 5, 2021
They disbanded after eight years in what she describes as “fraught” circumstances, and the sense that her band members never took her seriously still interlaces her conversation.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 21, 2019
And her palm brushes the inside of your wrist as she interlaces her fingers with yours to pull you to the door.
From "Odd One Out" by Nic Stone
"Dao" depicts two interlaced events: a wedding near Paris and a funeral ceremony in Guinea-Bissau.
From Barron's ● Feb. 16, 2026
Gathering bits and pieces as rendered in English, the songs are remarkably conversational and down to earth, with humor and fragments of pop culture interlaced with poetic musings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2025
Participants, now paired up, gripped hands with their partners, fingers interlaced, gazing into one another’s eyes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025
There’s a whole lot more going on than a hearty appreciation of sheep, interlaced, rolling hills and Iron Age forts.
From Salon ● May 27, 2024
Luna interlaced her fingers with her grandmother’s and held on desperately.
From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill
An interlacing of memoir and anecdote, it begins with the author as a young boy, growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., left agog by the Bronx Zoo’s immersive Amazon exhibit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
Piker began surreptitiously interlacing those uploads with the rest of the company’s Facebook library.
From Slate ● Feb. 18, 2025
At least in the context she was talking about, outside of old disposable camera photographs, I had no clue who these people really were, despite their lives’ obvious interlacing with my own.
From Salon ● May 27, 2024
This “big melt” could wreak havoc on the towns and farms that line the rivers and irrigation channels interlacing the Central Valley.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2023
I clutch at the sheets, my fingers interlacing with the fabric.
From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
