Other forms: mingled, mingling, mingles
To mingle is to mix together, or to move about among guests talking. Mingle with the crowd, smells mingled, go and mingle.
At a party, mingling is the social duty of not standing in one corner all evening, and go and mingle is what hosts say. Of things it means to blend without fully combining: the smells mingled, mingled feelings. Note mingled, which is common before nouns of feeling — mingled relief and irritation; and that mingle is one of the few English verbs whose social sense is more common than its physical one.
1verbmixTo mix together.
“The smell of coffee mingled with the scent of fresh bread in the café.”
2verbmingleTo move about among guests talking.
“At the party, the host mingled with her guests, making sure everyone had a drink.”
mingle is a mixing.
MINGLE → from SINGLE to mixed with everyone
You arrived single, and by the end of the night you have mixed with everyone in the room.
hooks ontosingle
Middle English menglen is a frequentative of an older verb meaning to mix, related to among and mongrel. The -le ending makes it repeated, which suits both stirring and circulating a room.
Middle English
menglen
English, today
mingle
From earlier mingil, mengle, from Middle English menglen, equivalent to ming + le. Cognate with Dutch mengelen (“to mingle, mix”), German mengen (“to mingle, mix”). More at ming.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire