Interwoven | Vocabulary | Khan Academy

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. 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.

Let's talk about the word parts here. We've got inter, which means between or among, and interaction, right? That's action between two or more things. An intercom is a device that allows you to communicate within a building or similar. Woven is the past tense form of to weave. Weaving is when you make fabric out of threads by interlacing them on a machine called a 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. If you do that enough times, you have a piece of fabric. A 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.

All right, let's do it. [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 sec, to cut.

So intersection, intercept, 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 away with that top secret communiqué! Oh no, he has 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: the 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. Curried pizza is a real thing, by the way, if you've never had it, and it's incredible. Dip a piece of cheese pizza into sog 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.