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:
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
Apart from and beyond the world, He yet mysteriously intermingles with it.
From Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry by Albert Pike
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
It was an endless list of calls and texts, intermingled, not organized by day or time.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
Nearby, I pulled into King Tacos to sample a peculiar hybrid cuisine born out of the long intermingling of American, Japanese and Okinawan culinary traditions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2025
"Wales is, and can be, a truly bilingual country where we have English and Welsh co-existing and intermingling," he added.
From BBC ● Nov. 13, 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
This ancient intermingling created the scrub mints as they're known today.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 2, 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.
