/ˌɪntəˈlɪŋk/
[verb] To connect two or more things together so that they depend on or affect each other, like the links of a chain joining to form a whole.
Every chain you have ever held explains this word — it literally means 'to place links between links.'
The word 'interlink' is built from two separate pieces, each with its own long history, joined together in English during the 17th century. The first part, 'inter-', comes from the Latin preposition and prefix 'inter', meaning 'between' or 'among'. Latin 'inter' is an ancient Indo-European root that also gave English words like 'internal', 'interval', and 'interrupt' — all carrying that same sense of something happening in the space between two things.
The second piece, 'link', has a fascinatingly different origin. It did not come from Latin at all but arrived through the Germanic languages of northern Europe. The Old English period had a related concept, but the specific word 'link' as we use it today most likely entered Middle English from Old Norse 'hlekkr', meaning a ring or loop in a chain. Scandinavian Vikings, who settled large parts of Britain from the 8th century onward, left hundreds of words in English, and 'link' is considered one of their quiet contributions. By the 15th century, 'link' was firmly established in English, referring first to a literal ring of metal in a chain.
The meaning of 'link' expanded naturally over time. A metal ring connects to the rings beside it, and so the word began to describe any connection between things — people, ideas, events, or places. This shift from the physical to the abstract is one of the most common patterns in language history, and 'link' followed it gracefully. By the 16th century, writers were using 'link' to describe relationships and associations that had nothing to do with iron or steel.
When English speakers combined 'inter-' with 'link', they created a word that intensified this idea of connection. To 'link' two things suggests joining them at a single point, but to 'interlink' them suggests weaving them together so that each one passes through the other — like the rings of chain mail armour, where no single ring can move without affecting its neighbours. The prefix 'inter-' adds a sense of mutual, reciprocal connection rather than a simple one-directional attachment.
What is particularly interesting about 'interlink' is how modern its most common uses feel, even though the word itself is several centuries old. Today we speak of interlinked computer systems, interlinked economies, and interlinked social networks — all concepts that the word's first users could not have imagined. Yet the core idea has remained perfectly stable: things that are interlinked are bound together in a web where each affects the other, just as every loop in a chain bears the weight shared by all the others.