intervening

1. 1
   adjective

   Coming or falling between two events, periods, or points in time.

   Like the quiet stretch of road between two cities.

   She left in 2010 and returned in 2018; the intervening years were spent abroad.

   The two surveys agreed, but the intervening period saw rapid population growth.

   Similarinterim, intermediate, in-between

   Note

   Time is the usual company here: the intervening years, the intervening period, the intervening decades. The word sits before its noun, usually after the, and marks a stretch bounded at both ends. James Lambert, writing in 2018, uses it this way when he warns that a word's reappearance is no proof of continued use "over the intervening period." That gap is exactly what this adjective names.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of intervene.

   The central bank is intervening to support the falling currency.

   Without anyone intervening, the dispute escalated within minutes.

   Note

   Every use of intervene passes through this form, including the courtroom one: someone intervening in a suit they were not made a party to, in order to defend their own interest. Position tells the forms apart. After be it is the verb (the bank is intervening), and before a noun it is the "in-between time" adjective. As a noun it can even take a plural, intervenings, in the sense of mediation.

3. 3
   adjective

   Serving to come between two parties or to mediate a dispute.

   Like a peacemaker who stands between two arguing sides.

   The intervening diplomat persuaded both governments to resume talks.

   An intervening authority stepped in to settle the boundary dispute.

   Similarintermediary

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The act of coming between two parties to settle matters; intervention or mediation.

   Like a neutral go-between who steps in to smooth over a quarrel.

   The committee's intervening resolved a long-standing dispute over funding.

   Quiet intervening by a trusted elder finally brought both families together.

   Similarmediation, intervention, intercession, arbitration

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