untangle
Americanverb (used with object)
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untangles,
present (3rd person singular)
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untangled,
past participle, past
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untangling
present participle
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to bring out of a tangled state; disentangle; unsnarl.
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to straighten out or clear up (anything confused or perplexing).
verb
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to free from a tangled condition
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to free from perplexity or confusion
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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untanglesimple
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untanglessimple
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have untangledperfect
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has untangledperfect
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am untanglingprogressive
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are untanglingprogressive
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is untanglingprogressive
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have been untanglingperfect progressive
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has been untanglingperfect progressive
Past
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untangledsimple
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had untangledperfect
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was untanglingprogressive
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were untanglingprogressive
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had been untanglingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of untangle
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.
See Examples For:
Attribution science seeks to untangle how much human-caused climate change shaped a specific heat wave, storm or flood, and its findings now shape litigation and policy.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
No need to untangle the complex hypocrisy here — it’s all laid out in arrows and diagrams.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026
The rules and features of each are a lot for sleep-starved parents to untangle, but financial advisers have a general framework to help parents determine which accounts they should give priority to.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 23, 2026
Mercifully, Aviv has bravely attempted to untangle the mother-daughter dynamic and bring it into the light.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
My hands tremble a little as I untangle the ancient lights from one another.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
"This work untangles some of the secrets and shows how N-terminal acetylation shape individual protein fate," Thomas Arnesen concludes.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023
"It is hard for the government to shore up economic growth unless it untangles the complex knot of weak confidence," said Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank.
From Reuters ● Jul. 31, 2023
The novel tells the story of a Texas-born working man unwittingly becoming a detective as he untangles a mystery that takes him to L.A.’s Black, white and Latino neighborhoods.
From New York Times ● May 17, 2023
In “Silverview,” le Carré untangles the life of Edward Avon, a sly former intelligence field agent emotionally scarred from harrowing experiences during the Bosnian conflict.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 12, 2021
Momma lets me hug her for a minute, and then she untangles my arms from around her waist.
From "A Good Kind of Trouble" by Lisa Moore Ramée
Unlike in three dimensions, those paths cannot simply be untangled afterward.
From Science Daily ● May 9, 2026
How can Mr. Warsh get the Fed untangled?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
In a sense, then, the alliance is held together by complex supply chains and contractual agreements that could not possibly be untangled overnight.
From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2025
James caused just enough of a distraction that Reid missed, the Lakers pushing the other way and scoring as James untangled himself from a collapsed row of chairs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2025
He untangled the wires of the flapping birds and repainted the chipped toys.
From "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick
Jenée Desmond-Harris offers advice on untangling this knotty disagreement.
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2026
The novel follows Susan, a queer creative untangling the coulda, woulda, shoulda situationship that has spanned decades, while grappling with the reality of a career that dips and shifts in a changing media landscape.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Taking a stand will involve you untangling years of conditioning.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 27, 2026
A new study introduces a genome-wide approach for untangling these complex genetic histories.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2026
She raked her fingers through her hair, fluffing it, untangling the knots.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
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.
