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
-
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
-
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
Throughout these tales, the careers of eminent scientific figures intertwine with the lives of ordinary people.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 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
But navigating the ins and outs of stories that intertwine without overstepping has required nimbleness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 19, 2026
As the remaining curlicues of steam intertwine with the snow, visibility extends just to the end of my barrel.
From "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins
It raises funds to benefit 10 like-minded advocacy groups, and intertwines her music career and women’s rights advocacy in ways few pop artists at her scale are attempting.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
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
"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
“Jensen Huang has become enormously influential in shaping U.S. chip policy, and Nvidia’s commercial interests are intertwined with Washington’s China strategy in complex and sometimes conflicting ways,” Lee said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 31, 2026
The discovery suggests that persistent back pain may become deeply intertwined with a person's sense of self, potentially helping explain why conventional pain treatments often provide limited relief.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 30, 2026
For John and TJ Osborne, work and family have long been intertwined.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026
For these elections are not just proximate, they are intertwined.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 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
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 its graceful intertwining of meditation and obscenity, “Afternoons of Solitude” gives an ancient, controversial tradition the chance to shock and awe without hype or favor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 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.
