Sample sentences for INTERVENE

2 meanings

(click/touch triangles for details)

1 —as in:
intervened in the war

Definition

get involved; or come between

They do not like America to intervene in the Middle East.

intervene = get involved

Other Uses (with this meaning)

We would have finished last week, but the weather intervened.

intervened = interfered

They are opposed to Russian intervention in their country.

intervention = involvement

(editor's note: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.)

Why did the U.S. not intervene earlier in WW II?

intervene = get involved

Without intervention, the colony will die.
Sue Monk Kidd -- The Secret Life of Bees

intervention = active involvement to bring about change

I said I didn't want Shawn in prison but that some type of intervention was needed.
Tara Westover -- Educated

intervention = active involvement to bring about change

On and on he would have gone, if Athena had not intervened.
Madeline Miller -- Circe

intervened = gotten involved

I'd admit that I didn't know that much about fashion, but Marlee and I both agreed that someone should have intervened on her behalf.
Kiera Cass -- The Selection

intervened = gotten involved (to help)

It might have turned ugly had General Taheri not intervened.
Khaled Hosseini -- The Kite Runner

intervened = gotten involved (to change an outcome)

So I didn't miss the irony of lying to a therapist (to protect Mom) lest I ignite another intervention by the county children's services.
J.D. Vance -- Hillbilly Elegy

intervention = involvement

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

2 —as in:
in the intervening years

Definition

passage of time — especially between two events

Decades intervened before the story was written.

intervened = passed

Other Uses (with this meaning)

I knew her as a child and then saw her again in college. She had grown into a beautiful woman during the intervening years.

intervening = passing

This phenomenon, in the various shapes which it assumed, indicated no external change, but so sudden and important a change in the spectator of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a single day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse of years.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter

intervening = passing

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

Less commonly:

Much more rarely, intervene can mean:

in various senses, including:

to verbally interrupt — as in "Not now!' she intervened."
to be physically between — as in: "You can't walk from one hill to the other because an impassable river intervenes."

Search for other examples by interest

Interest — Source