Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
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verb
To confuse or entangle together; to enmesh, to muddle.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: informal, intransitive, rare
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
Of documents, information, etc.: to interconnect or interrelate in a complex way.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: informal, intransitive, rare
Topics: computing, engineering, human-sciences, information-science, mathematics, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
PIE word *h1én Probably a blend of intertwine + intermingle. The word has apparently been coined independently several times: * It was used by the Indian author and translator Manmatha Nath Dutt (1855–1912) in an 1896 work: see the quotation. * It appears to have been used comically by Montgomery Gordon Rice of Bradley Polytechnic Institute in an April 1901 performance of Esmeralda: see the quotation. * It was used as a noun by the American-British author Henry James (1843–1916) as a nickname for a group of his Emmet female cousins who were painters; and also by the American artist John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) as a nickname for his 1900s genre paintings of his nieces, the Ormond sisters. Sargent was referring to the use of shawls as a motif, or the interchangeability of the models or their convoluted poses. (The American artist Jane Emmet de Glehn (1873–1961), one of Henry James’ “intertwingles”, was also a friend and model of Sargent’s.) * The word was used in the urban planning context by Tracy Augur in the 1950s (see the 1954 quotation), and adopted by others including Dennis O’Harrow. Sense 2 (“of documents, information, etc.: to interconnect or interrelate in a complex way”) was developed from its use in Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) by the American philosopher and sociologist Theodor Holm Nelson (born 1937): see the quotation.
Across languages
1 source translations are retained for this English entry.
