Interwoven | Vocabulary

0:00- [David] I've got a twisted tale to tell you in this video, Wordsmiths, because the word I want to talk about is interwoven, interwoven. It's an adjective and it means twisted or joined together and it has a literal meaning like two fibers woven into the same carpet, but it also has a figurative one, like the strands of two families joining together when their children get married.

0:27Let's talk about the word parts here. We've got inter, which means between or among, and interaction, right? Is action between two or more things, and intercom is a device that allows you to communicate within a building or similar, and woven is the past tense form of to weave.

0:49Weaving is when you make fabric out of threads by inter, huh, inter, interlacing them on a machine called the loom. I was just in a fabric workshop, here's a picture I took of a loom from the other day. The threads are under tension and you plate them together and if you do that enough times, you have a piece of fabric.

1:07A weave in the noun form is a hair extension or it can be the pattern that you make by weaving something. Let's weave these word parts into other words. Leaving weave aside for now, what are some words that you can think of that use the prefix inter? I'll put on some music, meet me back here in 10 seconds.

1:28All right, let's do it. (upbeat music) Here are three that I came up with. Interrelated, an adjective that means two things are related to one another, right? There's a connection between them. An intersection, a crossroads where two roads cut into each other, that's what sect means, it's from secare, to cut, so intersection.

1:59Intercept, which is a verb that means to catch something on its way to somewhere else. You can intercept a ball and snatch it out of the air while it's passing between two places or a spy can intercept a secret message. Oh no, that spy has made a way with that top secret communique.

2:17Oh no, he's disappeared. Let's use interwoven in a few sentences. Here's a literal use. In this pattern, blue threads are interwoven with pink, right? If you do this enough times, you can sort of see where plaid comes from. The strands are literally woven together, but here's a figurative use of the word.

2:40The food traditions of Italy and India are interwoven in my dad's signature dish, pizza curry. In this case, it's traditions that have been twisted together rather than literal strands of thread. Curry pizza is a real thing, by the way, if you've never had it and it's incredible.

2:58Dip a piece of cheese pizza into saag paneer and thank me later. Listen, Wordsmiths, I'm just here to help in matters food related and in matters word related, and you're just here because you can learn anything. David, out.