interthink

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verb

To use talk to think collectively, to engage with others' ideas through oral language.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

verbinterthink (third-person singular simple present interthinks, present participle interthinking, simple past and past participle interthought)

present singular third person interthinks · participle present interthinking · participle past interthought · past interthought

  1. intransitiveTo use talk to think collectively, to engage with others' ideas through oral language.
    2 more examples

    2002 Mercer, Neil, "Developing Dialogues." In Gordon Wells and Guy Claxton, eds. Learning for Life in the 21st Century: Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. That is, exploratory talk represents a way in which partners involved in problem-solving activity can use language to think collectively -- to 'interthink' effectively, with their activity encapsulated in an intermental zone of their own construction.

    2015 Knight, Simon and Littleton, Karen. “Thinking, Interthinking, and Technological Tools.” In The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Teaching Thinking, edited by Rupert Wegerif, Li Li, and James C. Kaufman, Routledge, 2015. This power, we argue, lies in the ways in which dialogue is used to interthink – that is, to think together, to build knowledge co-constructively through our shared understanding.

Origin

From inter- + think; term apparently coined by Neil Mercer in 1995.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

interthink. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/interthink

MLA

“interthink.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/interthink. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “interthink,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/interthink.

Source: interthink on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.