intermingle
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
interminglesimple
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interminglessimple
-
have intermingledperfect
-
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:
Shots of children too absorbed in their tablets to play with each other intermingle with classic bickering between Tom Hanks‘ Woody and Tim Allen‘s Buzz Lightyear.
From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2026
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
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
Around this question, Rosebrock has spun a comedy that freely intermingles laughter, frustration, tears and shock.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2024
The wallpaper playfully intermingles late-Georgian-style silhouettes of Ward and her beloved oversize insects.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
What’s priceless about “The Front Page” is the way in which it intermingles so deftly the tawdriness and the romance of the job.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 13, 2016
The introduction of flowers into our rooms infuses the same sensations, but intermingles them more with our domestic comforts; so that we feel, as it were, in closer contact with them.
From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 337, October 25, 1828 by Various
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 beeches with white, naked limbs leant close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
In Latin America, as Hayes-Bautista explained, after centuries of Indigenous and Spanish intermingling, racial and ethnic lines were fluid, with myriad, subtle gradations of color, lineage and heritage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 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
Such intermingling of motives is normal in politics, but what if Mr. Netanyahu was right?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
In places where livestock owners have guns, wild relatives have been killed to prevent intermingling.
From Science Daily ● May 29, 2024
While he talks, von Rumpel struggles to keep his balance; the intermingling of so many odors in this shop overwhelms.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
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.
