disentangle

UK[ˌdɪsɪnˈtæŋɡəɫ]US[ˌdɪsɪnˈtæŋɡəɫ]

verbC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,385 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: disentangled, disentangling, disentangles

To disentangle is to free something from a knot or a muddle. Disentangle the wires, disentangle himself, disentangle fact from rumour.

It is used as often of arguments as of string: to disentangle two questions is to separate what had been confused. The reflexive is common — to disentangle yourself from a situation is to get free of it carefully rather than by force.

Definitions of disentangle

1verbdisentangleTo free something from a knot or a muddle.C1
“It took me ages to disentangle the Christmas lights.”

disentangle is a freeing.

Where it comes from

Middle English
entanglen
English
entangle
English, today
disentangle

From dis- + entangle. entangle comes from Middle English entanglen. From Middle English entanglen (“to involve [someone] in difficulty”, “to embarrass”). Equivalent to en + tangle.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

disentangle in the wild

The works were groundbreaking because it was the first time that any scholar had attempted to disentangle the history of Greek religion from that of Greek mythology.
The Cults of the Greek States
The two events appears to have been unrelated, but it has been difficult for historians to disentangle the exact effects of each based on the classical sources.
262 Southwest Anatolia earthquake
A number of Minifie's works have historically been attributed to Gunning, but recently critics have sought to disentangle their two histories.
Margaret Minifie

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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