intertwine
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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intertwines,
present (3rd person singular)
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intertwined,
past participle, past
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intertwining
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
intertwinesimple
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intertwinessimple
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have intertwinedperfect
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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
-
had intertwinedperfect
-
was intertwiningprogressive
-
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:
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
Their harmonies intertwine like two gulls in flight.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 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
Mr. Hofstadter likes to intertwine a couple’s names as a wedding gift, for example, so that “Rachel” rotates into “Winston.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
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
U.S. regulators are now taking a closer look at the Wall Street playbook that effectively intertwines private credit with traditional life insurance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 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
Through presentations of regional music, publications and visual art, this exhibition looks at the ways the music intertwined with art and local culture to create a counter-cultural movement.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
"Vinted's journey has certainly been intertwined with the broader development of Lithuania's startup ecosystem," said the company's vice president for corporate affairs, Jessie de la Merced, arguing that its presence has had a "multiplier effect".
From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026
The surviving spouse and children become financially intertwined, because the children have an ownership interest.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
Hers was always intertwined, so that’s something that I didn’t really get used to.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
“You are their mice. Your fates are intertwined with theirs.”
From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck
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
Duell’s character — a love child intertwining the rival Quartermaine and Corinthos families — was born onscreen in 1997 and was at the center of a heated custody battle since birth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 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.
