entangle

UK/ɪnˈtaŋ.ɡəl/US/ɪnˈtæŋ.ɡəl/

verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — tangle sits at #8,193neutral

Other forms: entangled, entangling, entangles

To entangle is to catch something up in knots it cannot escape. Netting, wire, or somebody else's affairs.

It is nearly always passive, so a whale becomes entangled in fishing gear, which is one of the great causes of death for marine mammals and the commonest literal use of the word. The figurative sense covers being caught in disputes and relationships. Physics has quantum entanglement, where two particles remain linked however far apart, which is the strangest use of the word there is.

Definitions of entangle

1verbentangleTo catch something up in something it cannot get free of.C2
“The line will entangle anything that swims into it.”

Also accepted in games: tangle

Where it comes from

Middle English
entanglen
English, today
entangle

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 Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 9 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

entangle in the wild

In a confrontation the kusari is swung in wide sweeping arcs to distract and entangle the opponent and the kama is used to deliver a fatal strike.
Kusarigamajutsu
When skilled with this weapon, it could be used to entangle a sword and pull it from an opponent's hands, rendering them harmless.
Kyoketsu-shoge
Valentino portrays Count Rodrigo Torriani, an Italian aristocrat whose passion and impulsiveness entangle him in a scandalous love affair that ultimately leads to personal ruin.
Cobra (1925 film)
Foul is a nautical term meaning to entangle or entwine, and more generally that something is wrong or difficult.
Foul (nautical)
Thinan-malkia is an evil spirit in Australian Aboriginal mythology that captures victims with nets that entangle their feet.
Thinan-malkia

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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.

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