interthread

English

Alternative forms

• inter-thread

Etymology

inter- +‎ thread

Pronunciation

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Verb

interthread (third-person singular simple present interthreads, present participle interthreading, simple past and past participle interthreaded)

1. (transitive) To pass (strands of material) over and under one another to create a fabric; (by analogy) to weave long, narrow objects together.

   Synonyms: interlace, intertwine, interweave

   the interthreading of warp and weft

   • 1913, Algernon Blackwood, chapter 24, in A Prisoner in Fairyland‎^[1], London: Macmillan, page 335:

     a woven maze of tiny glittering lines, exquisitely inter-threaded

   • 1981, Jack Butler, “Blackberries”, in Miller Williams, editor, Ozark, Ozark‎^[2], Columbia: University of Missouri Press, page 148:

     under the interthreaded honeysuckle and greenbriar

   • 2000, Philip Lawson, chapter 24, in Muskrat Courage‎^[3], New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur, page 165:

     Cooper interthreaded his fingers and flexed his hands palm to palm.

2. (transitive) To alter a fabric by weaving additional strands into it; to bring (two or more things) together like the strands in fabric; to bring (one thing) together (with another thing).

   Synonyms: blend, combine, mix

   silk fabrics interthreaded with gold and silver

   • 1921, Jessie Sime, chapter 45, in Our Little Life‎^[4], New York: Stokes:

     Why wasn’t it a fine thing to be ready with your money? Why wasn’t it good to share your food an’ drink? She had never had the courage to ask Robert to explain, and now as she thought of Mrs. Morphy’s generosity, interthreaded with her thought was a remembrance of this saying of Robert’s.

   • 1922, Grant Showerman, Horace and His Influence, London: Harrap, Introduction, p. xiii,^[5]

     The myriad and mysterious interthreading of motive and action, of cause and effect, presents to the near vision no semblance of a pattern, and the whole web is so confused and meaningless that the mind grows to doubt the presence of design, and becomes skeptical of the necessity, or even the importance, of any single strand.

   • 1995, Jane Brox, chapter 2, in Here and Nowhere Else‎^[6], Boston: Beacon Press, pages 31–32:

     I clearly remember the evenings I went to gather a friend from choir practice. I could hear the music from streets away—interthreaded voices cast into the immense night,

3. (transitive) To be present in every part of (something) like strands running through it.

   Synonyms: crisscross, pervade, run through

   • 1876, John Stuart Blackie, chapter 3, in The Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands,‎^[7], Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, page 139:

     the black moor, interthreaded with briny waters

   • 1886, Willard Glazier, chapter 11, in Peculiarities of American Cities‎^[8], Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, page 183:

     The traveler on this road stands a fair chance of missing his connecting links in the great railway chain which interthreads the continent east and west […]

   • 1908, Helen Keller, chapter 6, in The World I Live In,‎^[9], New York: The Century Co., page 77:

     The sensuous reality which interthreads and supports all the gropings of my imagination […]

   • 1931, G. Wilson Knight, chapter 1, in The Imperial Theme,‎^[10], London: Methuen, published 1951, page 11:

     The divine interthreads the earthly in these plays:

4. (transitive) To integrate (strands of material into a fabric) by weaving.
   • 1848 November, Charles Rich, “War,—its Reality and Poetry”, in Western Literary Messenger, volume 11, number 3, page 131:

     […] Christianity is slowly but steadily, and as surely, interthreading her bright woof-lines into the texture of national and political, as well as social life:

5. (intransitive) To be or become woven or twisted together (with something); to be or become inextricably associated like strands woven or twisted together.
   • 1977, Michael Bishop, chapter 6, in Stolen Faces‎^[11], New York: Harper and Row, page 69:

     an immense lake of ceaselessly interthreading grays and silvers

   • 1995, Natalie Angier, chapter 9, in The Beauty of the Beastly,‎^[12], Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 55:

     […] we know how [every neuron’s] dendrites and axons interthread with other nerve cells.

   • 1997, Parker Shipton, “Bitter Money: Forbidden Exchange in East Africa”, in Roy Richard Grinker, Christopher B. Steiner, editors, Perspectives on Africa‎^[13], Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, page 168:

     The traditions of thought and practice found today in the region weave together local and exogenous strands, in a variegated fabric […] . Indigenous and exogenous marriage systems, methods of praise and prayer, food and drink taboos, and dress codes all interthread, but not in a static or homogeneous way.

6. (intransitive) To move alternately on either side of people or objects; to weave in and out.
   • 1896, Arthur Symons, “Javanese Dancers”, in Silhouettes‎^[14], London: Leonard Smithers, page 33:

     One, two, three, four step forth, and, to and fro,
     Delicately and imperceptibly,
     Now swaying gently in a row,
     Now interthreading slow and rhythmically,

   • 1918 November, Henry Beston, “With the American Submarines”, in The Atlantic Monthly, page 688:

     We watched the little double-decked tram-cars gliding by, the opposing, interthreading streams of pedestrians, and a fleet of coal barges coming up the river […]

Adjective

interthread (not comparable)

1. (computing) Between threads.

   interthread communication

See also

• multithreading