disentangle
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
-
to release or become free from entanglement or confusion
-
(tr) to unravel or work out
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of disentangle
Explanation
When you disentangle something, you free it from a snarl or tangle. If you have long hair and pierced ears, you've probably had to disentangle an earring from a curl of hair. Something that becomes tangled or twisted needs someone to disentangle it — you might disentangle your kitten from a length of yarn, or disentangle your jacket from a thorny bush when you're hiking through the woods. You can also disentangle someone figuratively, helping them get out of an uncomfortable or difficult situation. Tangle is at the heart of disentangle, from the fourteenth century word tagilen, "to involve in a difficult situation."
Vocabulary lists containing disentangle
The Miracle Worker
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James and the Giant Peach
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Swindle
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"To disentangle the relative roles of innovation and environmental change, we need further analyses of trait-dependent diversification, fossil-informed timelines and performance tests that link true crabs' sideways movement to adaptive advantages," Kawabata adds.
From Science Daily • May 2, 2026
Their lives intersect, then disentangle, then return to each other’s orbit again.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 20, 2026
But questions have also been raised about whether they can disentangle themselves from their parents' mess.
From BBC • Oct. 31, 2025
Policymakers are trying to disentangle whether a slowdown in monthly job gains reflects fewer people entering the country and seeking jobs or, instead, a drop in demand for workers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 29, 2025
Long before Descartes we can find references to laws of nature in a scientific context, and scholars have struggled to disentangle the origins of the concept.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
