verb
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to catch or involve in or as if in a tangle; ensnare or enmesh
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to make tangled or twisted; snarl
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to make complicated; confuse
-
to involve in difficulties; entrap
Related Words
See involve.
Other Word Forms
- entangleable adjective
- entangledly adverb
- entangledness noun
- entangler noun
- entanglingly adverb
- interentangle verb (used with object)
- unentangleable adjective
- unentangled adjective
- unentangling adjective
Etymology
Origin of entangle
Explanation
To entangle is to snarl, intertwine with, or get caught in. Too often, dolphins entangle themselves in large fishing nets meant to catch tuna or swordfish. If you mean to trip your brother, you can entangle your leg around his, and when long-haired people don't brush it for days, it will snarl and entangle itself. A figurative way to entangle is to get caught up in a complicated situation: "I didn't mean to entangle you in this mess with my roommates!" Entangle's roots are en-, "put in" or "cause to be" and tangle, or "snarl."
Vocabulary lists containing entangle
Messenger
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: en-, em-
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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
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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.
Over an hour into a high-speed chase with the suspect, the sheriff’s department botched the deployment of a “grappler” net system intended to entangle the back wheels of the car to slow it down.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 12, 2026
Mulino has insisted the canal's neutrality is intact and has urged Washington not to entangle Panama in its rivalry with Beijing.
From Barron's • Jan. 30, 2026
“Unguided chatbot responses, for example, cannot be neatly constrained. Attempts to do so will either be insufficient or entangle developers in a morass of third-rail social issues.”
From Salon • Aug. 14, 2025
Silicon vacancy center-based network nodes can catch, store and entangle bits of quantum information while correcting for signal loss.
From Science Daily • May 15, 2024
I disentangle my finger so that I can entangle all the others until our palms are pressed against each other.
From "Everything, Everything" by Nicola Yoon
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.
