Adjacent Words

Entangle definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ENTAN'GLE, v.t. [from tangle.] To twist or interweave in such a manner as not to be easily separated; to make confused or disordered; as, thread, yarn or ropes may be entangled; to entangle the hair.
1. To involve in any thing complicated, and from which it is difficult to extricate one's self; as, to entangle the feet in a net, or in briers.
2. To lose in numerous or complicated involutions, as in a labyrinth.
3. To involve in difficulties; to perplex; to embarrass; as, to entangle a nation in alliances.
4. To puzzle; to bewilder; as, to entangle the understanding.
5. To insnare by captious questions; to catch; to perplex; to involve in contradictions.
The Pharisees took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. Matthew 22.
6. To perplex or distract, as with cares.
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life. 2 Timothy 2.
7. To multiply intricacies and difficulties.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: entrap; "Our people should not be mired in the past" [syn: entangle, mire]
2: twist together or entwine into a confusing mass; "The child entangled the cord" [syn: entangle, tangle, mat, snarl] [ant: disentangle, straighten out, unsnarl]

Merriam Webster's

transitive verb Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French entangler — more at tangle Date: 15th century 1. a. to wrap or twist together ; interweave b. ensnare 2. a. to involve in a perplexing or troublesome situation <became entangled in a lawsuit> b. to make complicated <the story is entangled with legends> • entangler noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.tr. 1 cause to get caught in a snare or among obstacles. 2 cause to become tangled. 3 involve in difficulties or illicit activities. 4 make (a thing) tangled or intricate; complicate.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Entangle En*tan"gle, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Entangled; p. pr. & vb. n. Entangling.] 1. To twist or interweave in such a manner as not to be easily separated; to make tangled, confused, and intricate; as, to entangle yarn or the hair. 2. To involve in such complications as to render extrication a bewildering difficulty; hence, metaphorically, to insnare; to perplex; to bewilder; to puzzle; as, to entangle the feet in a net, or in briers. ``Entangling alliances.'' --Washington. The difficulties that perplex men's thoughts and entangle their understandings. --Locke. Allowing her to entangle herself with a person whose future was so uncertain. --Froude.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(entangles, entangling, entangled) 1. If one thing entangles itself with another, the two things become caught together very tightly. The blade of the oar had entangled itself with something in the water. VERB: V n with/in n 2. If something entangles you in problems or difficulties, it causes you to become involved in problems or difficulties from which it is hard to escape. Bureaucracy can entangle ventures for months... His tactics were to entangle the opposition in a web of parliamentary procedure. VERB: V n, V n in/with n

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

en-tan'-g'-l:

Found but 5 times in the Scriptures (the King James Version), once in the Old Testament, yet most significant as illustrating the process of mental, moral and spiritual confusion and enslavement.

(1) Physical:

Used of physical entanglement, as in the mazes of a labyrinth (bukh, to involve, "be perplexed"). At Moses' command the children of Israel, before crossing the Red Sea, took the wrong way in order to give Pharaoh the impression that they were lost in the wilderness and cause him to say "They are entangled in the land" (Ex 14:3).

(2) Mental:

pagideuo, "to entrap," "ensnare," with words, as birds are caught in a snare; compare Ec 9:12. The Pharisees sought to "entangle" (the Revised Version (British and American) "ensnare") Jesus in His talk (Mt 22:15).

(3) Moral:

`empleko, "to inweave," hence, intertwine and involve. "A god soldier of Jesus Christ," says Paul, does not "entangle himself," i.e. become involved, "in the affairs of this life" (2Ti 2:4). Having "escaped the defilements of the world," Christians are not to be "again entangled therein" (2Pe 2:20).

(4) Spiritual:

enecho, "to hold in," hence, to hold captive, as a slave in fetters or under a burden. Having experienced spiritual emancipation, freedom, through Christ from bondage to sin and false religion (Ga 5:1; compare Ga 4:8), the Gentiles were not to become "entangled again in a yoke of bondage" by submission to mere legal requirements, as the external rite of circumcision.

With reference to the thoroughness and irresistibleness of God's judgments, we read in Na 1:10, "For entangled like thorns" (the King James Version "while they be folden together as thorns"), damp, closely packed and intertwined, "they are consumed utterly as dry stubble" (the King James Version "devoured as stubble fully dry").

Dwight M. Pratt

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. a. 1. Ensnare, entrap, catch involve in complication. 2. Confuse (by twisting or crossing), intertwine, intertwist, interweave, tangle, knot, mat. 3. Perplex, embarrass, encumber, ensnare. 4. Puzzle, bewilder, catch, perplex, involve in contradictions.

Moby Thesaurus

absorb, addle, addle the wits, allure, bag, bait the hook, ball up, becloud, bedazzle, befuddle, bewilder, birdlime, bother, bug, burden, capture, catch, catch out, catch up, catch up in, clog, cloud, complicate, concern, confound, confuse, cramp, cripple, cumber, daze, dazzle, decoy, discombobulate, discomfit, discompose, disconcert, disorganize, disorient, disturb, draw in, embarrass, embrangle, embroil, encumber, engage, enmesh, ensnare, ensnarl, entoil, entrammel, entrap, entwine, enweb, fetter, flummox, flurry, fluster, flutter, fog, foul, foul up, fuddle, fuss, gin, hamper, hamstring, handicap, harpoon, hobble, hook, hook in, impede, implicate, interest, intertwine, interweave, inveigle, involve, knot, lame, land, lasso, lime, louse up, lumber, lure, maze, mesh, mess up, mist, mix up, moider, muck, muck up, muddle, nail, net, noose, perplex, perturb, pother, press down, put out, raise hell, ramify, rattle, ravel, rope, ruffle, sack, saddle with, screw up, shackle, snag, snare, snarl, snarl up, sniggle, spear, spread the toils, suck into, take, tangle, tangle up with, throw into confusion, toil, trammel, trap, trip, twist, unsettle, upset, weigh down, wind