intertwine
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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intertwinesimple
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intertwinessimple
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have intertwinedperfect
-
has intertwinedperfect
-
am intertwiningprogressive
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are intertwiningprogressive
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is intertwiningprogressive
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have been intertwiningperfect progressive
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has been intertwiningperfect progressive
Past
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intertwinedsimple
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had intertwinedperfect
-
was intertwiningprogressive
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were intertwiningprogressive
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had been intertwiningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of intertwine
Explanation
Things that intertwine are twisted or mixed together. You have to intertwine yarn to make a scarf. When things intertwine, they're all mixed up together — it's hard to separate them. To make any type of clothing, threads have to be intertwined. Rope is made of smaller fibers that intertwine. Related jobs—like a writer and an editor—intertwine too, because they are so closely related. You can say people are intertwined if they're close to each other, as family or friends. Getting intertwined could be a metaphor for getting married; the threads of your lives are getting tangled together.
Vocabulary lists containing intertwine
The Distance Between Us
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The Sea of Monsters
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King and the Dragonflies
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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:
Art and domestic life intertwine with each other, inform each other and perhaps support each other more than is at first apparent, leading to an ending that provides a satisfying union of the two realms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025
From the description of skin as “blue black” to the blues as a musical genre, the color blue and its many shades intertwine with African American heredity, history and heritage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2024
As she offers her prayers, the sacred space becomes a moment of spiritual release, where devotion and vulnerability intertwine.
From BBC ● Nov. 30, 2024
In this vision of marriage, spouses don’t occupy separate gender-based spheres; they intertwine their lives, each working to strengthen the scaffolding that supports the other.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2024
For Wagner, nothing was allowed to distract from the unfolding musical story and he would happily intertwine chorus, solo, duets, instrumental interludes so that you could hardly tell when one ended and another began.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
The deal further intertwines Musk's sprawling business empire, which already includes carmaker Tesla and social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
From Barron's ● Feb. 2, 2026
Mr. Brewer intertwines the movie’s two registers brilliantly in an opening scene in which Mr. Jackman does a brief musical performance that doubles as the monologue he delivers to his 12-step group.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025
The New Yorker’s Grann intertwines the racism and injustices of 1920s Oklahoma, corruption of local authorities and the mysterious deaths of several Osage people, mostly women.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2025
"But now there's a very direct lineage between local teams, larger structures like the NFL Academy, leagues and how it all intertwines."
From BBC ● Dec. 28, 2024
Nevertheless, since it intertwines itself with nearly every other question of moment, a few remarks by an outsider may be acceptable.
From Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History by Horne, Charles F. (Charles Francis)
The surviving spouse and children become financially intertwined, because the children have an ownership interest.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
Longer term, Japan’s savings and Uncle Sam’s finances also are intertwined.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
Representatives from two local tribes draw a parallel between the gather and past efforts to expel their people from their ancestral lands, and say the horses are intertwined with their culture.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Lesser-known documents illuminating other perspectives include the Dunmore Proclamation of 1775 which offered freedom to enslaved people who joined British forces, revealing how intertwined the war was with slavery.
From Barron's ● Jun. 22, 2026
Keeping her elbows intertwined with Max and Ivy, Josie gave the door a gentle nudge.
From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Ellison’s subject was America, whose many intertwining strands he saw as forming one great ecosystem.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
The deal would signal a deeper "intertwining" of the government and private businesses in the US, following a trend seen elsewhere in places like China, Mr Nicholson told the BBC.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2025
In Mussolini’s Italy, intellectuals were coerced into swearing loyalty to the fascist state, and scholarship became a tool of nationalist propaganda, intertwining classical myths with imperial ambition.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2025
This tour de force contains an hour’s worth of haunting, intertwining phrases that feel like a combination of Requiem and Kaddish.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2024
He drew his sword and looked at it, and the intertwining shapes of red and gold; and the flowing characters of Númenor glinted like fire upon the blade.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
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.
