intertwine
Americanverb (used with or without object)
-
intertwines,
present (3rd person singular)
-
intertwined,
past participle, past
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intertwining
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
intertwinesimple
-
intertwinessimple
-
have intertwinedperfect
-
has intertwinedperfect
-
am intertwiningprogressive
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are intertwiningprogressive
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is intertwiningprogressive
-
have been intertwiningperfect progressive
-
has been intertwiningperfect progressive
Past
-
intertwinedsimple
-
had intertwinedperfect
-
was intertwiningprogressive
-
were intertwiningprogressive
-
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:
Canada and the EU are looking to intertwine research institutions to create a network of scientific output to compete with the U.S. university system.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
There is no confession and no announcement; Joyce simply comes to realise, as the secrets accumulate and the women's lives intertwine, that her idea of a monogamous marriage has been a sham all along.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
Romance, on the other hand, implies a unique feeling two people share, a spark that can be nurtured together as their lives intertwine.
From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2026
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
The minty smell of his soap, the warmth of his arms, how when our fingers intertwine, the brown of my skin and the brown of his are nearly a perfect match.
From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed
Chapter by chapter, the author intertwines the sagas of both sets of grandparents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 7, 2026
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
The bold, unconventional “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” intertwines jazz with decolonization in its telling of newfound, fragile Congolese independence during the Cold War.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 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
Each of the first two pairs intertwines with the other: the last, Mort Artus, completes them all, and thus its title was not improperly used in later times to designate the whole Legend.
From The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) by George Saintsbury
Christina Cauterucci digs into the intertwined history of organized crime and fruit, including the establishment of the Sicilian Mafia in response to a lemon farming boom.
From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2026
"These are very intertwined, interconnected, interdependent supply chains," said Glenn Stevens, chief automotive officer at the Detroit Regional Chamber.
From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2026
With potential good and bad so intertwined, it is hard to know if the technology will bring a brighter future or darker days.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
The solidarity of Sept. 11 and the political choices made in its aftermath were not the same thing, even if they have become intertwined in our memory of the period.
From Salon ● Sep. 8, 2026
You walk toward the shimmering air, an arch of cedar boughs intertwined above it.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
"What it does portend, to me, is that Hong Kong will accelerate its economic intertwining with Beijing."
From Barron's ● Sep. 16, 2026
The themes of “Queen Esther” will be familiar to Mr. Irving’s many readers, who will also recognize his habit of intertwining fiction with personal history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2025
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
David sat next to me and took my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine.
From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
