Word.ws English Dictionary

intermural

/ˌɪntɚˈmjuːɹəl/

intermural adjective: between walls; enclosed by walls.

Adjective

intermural (not comparable)

  1. Between walls; enclosed by walls.
    • Turn from this picture to a vault or intermural yard, to the black mould, the coarse , rank, poisonous grass and nettles, the decayed monuments, and the dark shadows of the dismal walls, where the sunshine never sleeps, but where death and gloom ever dwell together.1854, Kenelm Henry Digby, Compitum: Or, The Meeting of the Ways at the Catholic Church, page 570
    • This intermural graveyard was attached to the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, and has been closed for many years.1911, Robert Allbut, “The Burial Ground in Bleak House”, in The Dickensian, volume 8, page 161
  2. Occurring within the walls or boundaries of an organ or other biological structure.
    • In Favosites and allied genera, the maximum size of the corallites is soon reached, and the expansion of the coral is mainly derived from intermural growth.1892, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, page 216
    • In some cases, when I have removed the uterine appendages for intermural fibroid tumours, I have found colloid degeneration of the ovary, and in other cases of intermural fibroid there was no colloid degeneration.1900 January 11, Mary Dixon Jones, “The Fourth Hitherto Undescribed Disease of the Ovary— Colloid Degeneration”, in British Gynaecological Journal, volume 22, page 570
  3. Local to an exhibit or exhibition.
    • Mr. W. E. Baker, the electrical egineer who designed, built, and operated the intermural road, replied "that the power stations should be so placed that the current of electricity would be transmitted five miles only, the loss being proportional to the distance – thus there would be two power...1894, Joe Vincent Meigs, True Rapid Transit: How it May be Achieved, page 16
    • The plants in the wild flower garden near the Agriculture building are making good growth and should attract much attention throughout the season. Get off at station 10 on the intermural railroad for the Horticulture building.1904 May 1, “World's Fair Notes”, in Gardening, volume 12, page 636
  4. In house; internal to an organization.
    • During the past 5 or 6 years, on the other hand, intermural research has tended to produce more publishable information.1988, Carl C. Wilson, Forest Fire Laboratory at Riverside and Fire Research in California, page 20
    • In addition, as you know, environmental tobacco smoke in studies both sponsored by the National Cancer Institute as well as intermural studies, have shown that this contributes to lung cancer, both primarily in women, but in both sexes.1991, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, NIH Reauthorization and Protection of Health Facilities, page 287
  5. Involving competition between institutions, especially sports competitions.
    • All recreational agencies must decide whether their own controlled program of activities shall be conducted on an intermural or intramural basis.1963, George Hjelte, Jay Sanford Shivers, Public Administration of Park and Recreational Services, page 236
    • Since sports are so ingrained in the fabric of the public schools, it may not be realistic to expect educators to allow some other organization to plan and administer all intermural competition.2002, Clayton Gingerich, Effective Education: A Prescription for Renewing Our Schools, page 156
  6. Originating as street art but being curated and displayed in a gallery or museum.
    • Balakian continues the theological metaphor in defining the artwork itself as "sacred," "a system of symbolization of which the correspondences are strictly intramural or self-referential to start and become intermural only when other artists accept the signal-making character of the work."2010, Betty Jean Craige, Relativism in the Arts, page 12
    • Intermural Art is thus an art venturing beyond these previous designations, venturing beyond and between the gaps in these practices. It is an art exploring the space between the street and the studio, between Graffiti and the gallery. It is an art exploring the vibrancy of the threshold, the space...2016, Konstantinos Avramidis, Myrto Tsilimpounidi, Graffiti and Street Art, page 112

Noun

intermural (plural intermurals)

  1. A (usually sport) competition between teams from separate organizations.
    • The fellows worked hard in the Intermurals under Joe Jackson's leadership, but the loss of some good men at the wrong time hurt. The Club ended the year in third place.1944, The Utah Juniper, page 8
    • They were then very surprised when they found out that, as students at a school for the deaf, they were not able to play in the prefectural intermurals against other schools.2006, Karen Nakamura, Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity, page 67
  2. A competition between teams from within the same organization.
    • Theoretically each team is supposed to fight as hard as possible for its side in the congressional intermurals .1967, Marjorie Ewing Aghassi, Little Legislatures, page 375
    • In addition to these intermurals, a girls' basketball program teaches the fundamentals of the sport.1990, Drug Information & Strategy Clearinghouse (U.S.), United States. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. Office for Drug-Free Neighborhoods, Home front
  3. An intermural yard; a walled garden.
    • The back wall of the workshop was taken up by a glass door, and behind it lay a small stone-paved garden, one of the tiny and fortuitous intermurals whose charm is London's secret.1993, Janina Kościałkowska, Beech Boat, page 41

Examples of intermural in a sentence

  • Under certain conditions tangential sections indicate that the zoœcial walls and the intermural space are seemingly pierced by communication pores or connecting foramina.1903, Ray Smith Bassler, The Structural Features of the Bryozoan Genus Homotrypa, with Descriptions of Species from the Cincinnatian Group...
  • There are a number of low, longitudinal or circular, oviducal, mucosal folds in the intermural segment of the tube which disappear before reaching the oviducal opening at the apex of the papilla.2012, A.D. Johnson, The Oviduct and its Functions, page 35:
  • The intermural research program at the Gerontology Research Center has a very important role in defining aging and aging research.1991, New Research on Aging, page 13:
  • Present at every level of the curriculum, the physical education programme is structured in three programme phases: academic, intermural, interscholastic.2016, Rosa Lopez de D'Amico, Tansin Benn, Gertrud Pfister, Women and Sport in Latin America:

Forms of intermural

pluralintermurals

Origin of intermural

From Latin intermūrālis. By surface analysis, inter- + mural.

Questions about intermural

What does intermural mean?
Intermural means between walls; enclosed by walls.
How do you use intermural in a sentence?
Under certain conditions tangential sections indicate that the zoœcial walls and the intermural space are seemingly pierced by communication pores or connecting foramina.
What part of speech is intermural?
Intermural can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce intermural?
Intermural is pronounced /ˌɪntɚˈmjuːɹəl/.

Words near intermural in the dictionary

  1. intermundian
  2. intermundium
  3. intermunicipal
  4. intermunicipalities
  5. intermunicipality
  6. intermural
  7. intermurals
  8. intermure
  9. intermured
  10. intermures
  11. intermuring

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: intermural (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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