Fitting or locking together with one another in a complex pattern; connected in such a way that each part depends on or supports the others.
From 'inter-' (between, among) + 'lock' (to secure or fasten). Became popular in English during the Industrial Age when machinery with interlocking gears demonstrated the concept perfectly.
Coral reef ecosystems are perfectly interlocking—thousands of species depend on each other so completely that scientists realized that damaging just one species causes the entire structure to collapse like removing one gear from a watch.
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