intermingle
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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intermingles,
present (3rd person singular)
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intermingled,
past participle, past
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intermingling
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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interminglesimple
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interminglessimple
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have intermingledperfect
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has intermingledperfect
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am interminglingprogressive
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are interminglingprogressive
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is interminglingprogressive
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have been interminglingperfect progressive
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has been interminglingperfect progressive
Past
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intermingledsimple
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had intermingledperfect
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was interminglingprogressive
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were interminglingprogressive
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had been interminglingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of intermingle
late Middle English word dating back to 1425–75; see origin at inter-, mingle
Explanation
Things that intermingle get mixed up with each other. Tall grasses and daisies might intermingle in your parents' backyard, but your parents may choose not to intermingle with their neighbors. When kids from diverse backgrounds intermingle in school, they learn more about people who are different from themselves, and when several different flavors intermingle successfully in a recipe, the taste is complex and delicious. Intermingle intermingles the prefix inter-, "among or between" and mingle, from the Middle English myngen, "to mix," from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to knead together."
Vocabulary lists containing intermingle
Inside Out & Back Again
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Novel Study: Inside Out & Back Again, Unpack and Repack–1976: The Year of the Dragon
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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:
In so doing, we may one day generate forests of trees whose ancestry does not intermingle with that of the species generated by the historic evolutionary process.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
Dr Lakdawala says if H5N1 becomes established in humans, it could re-assort - or intermingle - with existing strains, amplifying its public-health impact.
From BBC ● Dec. 17, 2025
The communities on either side are often from the same ethnic groups and intermingle, and herds of cattle migrate across the vast savannah.
From Barron's ● Oct. 20, 2025
“We felt value in having everyone in the office at least one day a week because it brought younger team members to intermingle and collaborate with seasoned members,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2024
I look back and see the way our footsteps intermingle to form a single path.
From "Every Day" by David Levithan
He intermingles the bones of infected and non-infected alike, he says, “because they are alike.”
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2026
The wallpaper playfully intermingles late-Georgian-style silhouettes of Ward and her beloved oversize insects.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
The book intermingles the midlife crisis of an Israeli tour guide with a poignant romance between two homing-pigeon handlers during the 1948 Israeli war of independence.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 19, 2023
As you enter, the smell of sweat intermingles with the tittering of classical piano music.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2022
As each class approximates to other classes, and intermingles with them, its members become indifferent and as strangers to one another.
From Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Henry Reeves
She prefers to swap pieces with friends and her pieces are intermingled with many gifts from other people.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Within this large group, cliques were formed but they often intermingled and share territory, like something from a simian Pixar film.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2026
Many Alexandrians are feeling the loss, intermingled with their other most treasured heritage.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
Several soldiers sketched in my notebook a new geography of the battlefield, marking dots to represent Ukrainian and Russian positions intermingled within the kill zone.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2025
The outer was red sandstone, thirty feet high and decorated with animals: snakes slithering, kites flying, fish swimming, intermingled with wolves of the red waste and striped zorses and monstrous elephants.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
And yet out of all the savagery and destruction, Mr. Winder asserts, also came the distinctive intermingling of customs, cultures and ideas that marked the future of all three river regions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
There are more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria, which is roughly divided into a mainly Muslim north, a largely Christian south, with intermingling in the middle.
From BBC ● Feb. 4, 2026
In places where livestock owners have guns, wild relatives have been killed to prevent intermingling.
From Science Daily ● May 29, 2024
The third-act turn into a 21st century “Oleanna” is effective, with Bartlett inventively intermingling her levels of fiction and cleanly visualizing the inevitable he said/she said conflicts.
From New York Times ● May 15, 2024
The social-science word for such intermingling without intermixing is "interdigitization."
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
