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Another word for tangle

a-z
Verb

  1. To twist together so that separation is difficult

      1. To growl viciously while baring the teeth.
      2. To speak angrily or threateningly.
      3. To utter with anger or hostility:
      1. Offensive to the senses; revolting:
      2. Having a bad odor or taste:
      3. Rotten or putrid:
      1. To cause to become twisted together or caught in a snarl or entwining mass:
      2. To involve in a complicated situation or in circumstances from which it is difficult to disengage:
      3. To cause (the quantum states of two or more objects) to become correlated in such a way that they remain correlated, even though the objects are separated spatially.
      1. To entangle in or as if in a snarl:
    See also:

    order

  2. To make complex, intricate, or perplexing

      1. To growl viciously while baring the teeth.
      2. To speak angrily or threateningly.
      3. To utter with anger or hostility:
      1. To separate the fibers or threads of (cloth, for example); unravel.
      2. To clarify by separating the aspects of.
      3. To tangle or complicate.
      1. To confuse or trouble with uncertainty or doubt.
      2. To make confusedly intricate; complicate:
      1. To have as a necessary feature or consequence; entail:
      2. To relate to or affect:
      3. To cause to burn; spread to:
      1. To cause to become twisted together or caught in a snarl or entwining mass:
      2. To involve in a complicated situation or in circumstances from which it is difficult to disengage:
      3. To cause (the quantum states of two or more objects) to become correlated in such a way that they remain correlated, even though the objects are separated spatially.
      1. To cause to feel self-conscious or ill at ease; disconcert:
      2. To hinder with obstacles or difficulties; impede:
      3. To involve in or hamper with financial difficulties:
      1. To make or become complex or perplexing.
      2. To twist or become twisted together.
      3. Complex, intricate, and involved.
    See also:

    simple

  3. To gain control of or an advantage over by or as if by trapping

      1. A woven fabric, especially one on a loom or just removed from it.
      2. The structural part of cloth.
      3. A latticed or woven structure:
      1. A contrivance for catching and holding animals, as a concealed pit or a clamplike device that springs shut suddenly.
      2. A stratagem for catching or tricking an unwary person.
      3. A confining or undesirable circumstance from which escape or relief is difficult:
      1. A shackle used to teach a horse to amble.
      2. Something that restricts activity, expression, or progress; a restraint.
      3. A vertically set fishing net of three layers, consisting of a finely meshed net between two nets of coarse mesh.
      1. A trapping device, often consisting of a noose, used for capturing birds and small mammals.
      2. Something that lures or entangles the unwary:
      3. A surgical instrument with a wire loop controlled by a mechanism in the handle, used to remove growths, such as tumors and polyps.
      1. To catch in or as if in a trap.
      2. To lure into danger, difficulty, or a compromising situation.
      3. To induce (someone) into performing an otherwise uncontemplated criminal act for the sole purpose of providing the basis for a prosecution.
      1. To entangle in or as if in a snarl:
      1. To take or catch in or as if in a snare; trap.
      1. To entangle or catch in or as if in a mesh.
      1. To get and hold (something that has been in motion) in a hand, the hands, a container, or an implement:
      2. To take hold of, especially forcibly or suddenly; grasp:
      3. To stop (oneself) from doing an action:
    See also:

    free

  4. To engage in a quarrel

    Idioms:
    See also:

    conflict

Noun

  1. Something that is intricately and often bewilderingly complex

      1. A woven fabric, especially one on a loom or just removed from it.
      2. The structural part of cloth.
      3. A latticed or woven structure:
      1. To growl viciously while baring the teeth.
      2. To speak angrily or threateningly.
      3. To utter with anger or hostility:
      1. A length of thread or yarn wound in a loose long coil.
      2. Something suggesting the coil of a skein; a complex tangle:
      3. A flock of geese or similar birds in flight.
      1. An area of low-lying, soggy ground.
      2. Something that hinders, engulfs, or overwhelms:
      1. Any of the open spaces in a net or network; an interstice.
      2. The cords, threads, or wires surrounding these spaces.
      3. An openwork fabric or structure; a net or network:
      1. An intricate, usually confusing network of interconnecting pathways, as in a garden; a labyrinth.
      2. A physical situation in which it is easy to get lost:
      3. A graphic puzzle, the solution of which is an uninterrupted path through an intricate pattern of line segments from a starting point to a goal.
      1. An intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one's way; a maze.
      2. The maze in which the Minotaur was confined.
      3. Something highly intricate or convoluted in character, composition, or construction:
      1. A compact intersection of interlaced material, such as cord, ribbon, or rope.
      2. A fastening made by tying together lengths of material, such as rope, in a prescribed way.
      3. A decorative bow of ribbon, fabric, or braid.
      1. Land covered with a dense growth of tropical vegetation.
      2. A dense thicket or growth.
      3. A dense, confused mass; a jumble.
      1. The state of being entangled; intricate and confused involution.
      2. That which entangles; intricacy; perplexity.
      3. Specifically, in fortification, an obstruction placed in front or on the flank of a fortification, to impede an enemy's approach.
      1. A game in which a string is looped on the fingers to form an intricate pattern between a player's hands that can be successively varied or transferred to another player's hands.
      2. An intricate pattern:
    See also:

    simple

  2. A discussion, often heated, in which a difference of opinion is expressed

      1. Any of several plants of the genus Rheum, especially R. rhabarbarum, having long edible green or reddish leafstalks that are usually cooked and sweetened.
      2. A preparation made from the dried rhizomes and roots of any of several plants of the genus Rheum, especially R. palmatum or R. officinale of East Asia, used as a laxative.
      3. A quarrel, fight, or heated discussion.
      1. An argument or a fight.
      2. Trouble; bother.
      3. To argue or fight:
      1. To quarrel noisily or angrily.
      2. To grasp and maneuver something.
      3. To attempt to deal with or understand something; contend or struggle:
      1. A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes.
      2. Something said; an utterance, remark, or comment:
      3. A command or direction; an order:
      1. A fit of irritation.
      2. A petty quarrel.
      3. To quarrel.
      1. To engage in a bad-tempered argument, often over a trivial matter; bicker.
      2. A noisy quarrel, often about a trivial matter.
      1. A quarrel or argument.
      2. Matter that is added to a text.
      3. Having been added to or inserted into a text:
      1. An angry dispute; an altercation.
      2. A reason for a dispute or argument:
      3. To engage in a quarrel; dispute angrily.
      1. A controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine.
      2. A person engaged in or inclined to controversy, argument, or refutation.
      3. Of or relating to a controversy, argument, or refutation.
      1. To attempt to harm or gain power over an adversary by blows or with weapons.
      2. To engage in a boxing match.
      3. To engage in a quarrel; argue:
      1. To argue about; debate:
      2. To argue or debate with (someone).
      3. To question the truth or validity of; doubt:
      1. A failure or refusal to agree.
      2. A disparity; an inconsistency.
      3. A conflict or difference of opinion.
      1. The condition or quality of being difficult:
      2. Something not easily done, accomplished, comprehended, or solved:
      3. A troublesome or embarrassing state of affairs, especially of financial affairs:
      1. To consider something; deliberate.
      2. To engage in argument by discussing opposing points.
      3. To engage in a formal discussion or argument.
      1. A dispute, especially a public one, between sides holding opposing views.
      2. The act or practice of engaging in such disputes:
      1. The act or an instance of striving in controversy or debate.
      2. A striving to win in competition; rivalry:
      3. An assertion put forward in argument:
      1. To collide with a loud, harsh, usually metallic noise:
      2. To meet in violent conflict:
      3. To be in opposition or disagreement:
      1. To engage in a bad-tempered quarrel, often in a petty manner over something trivial; squabble.
      2. To flicker or glitter:
      3. To move or flow with a rippling or gurgling sound.
      1. A discussion in which disagreement is expressed; a debate.
      2. A quarrel; a dispute.
      3. A reason or matter for dispute or contention:
    See also:

    conflict

© Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Another word for tangle

Noun
      1. To mix together, especially confusedly:
      2. To mix (a drink or the ingredients of a drink), especially with a muddler.
      3. To put into a state of confusion; confuse:
      1. A dead or partly dead tree that is still standing.
      2. A tree or a part of a tree that is sunken in or protrudes above a body of water and is a danger to navigation.
      3. A snaggletooth.
      1. To growl viciously while baring the teeth.
      2. To speak angrily or threateningly.
      3. To utter with anger or hostility:
    See also:

    knot

    confusion

Verb
  1. Antonyms:
© WEBSTER’S NEW WORLD® ROGET’S A-Z THESAURUS by Charlton Laird and the editors of Webster’s New World dictionaries. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Sentence Examples

  • He was sure by now it was a brown tangle, ready for the trash heap.

  • The commander-in-chief's first duty was to create a field army out of the tangle of units in Cape Colony.

  • involved in the tangle of European diplomacy; he is the monarch of a vast, admirably organized, spiritual world-empire, and when - as must needs happen - the overlapping of the spiritual and temporal spheres brings him into conflict with a secular power, his diplomacy is backed, wherever Catholic sentiment is strong, by a force which the secular power has much difficulty in resisting;.

  • A beard and mustache covered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with lice, curled round his head like a cap.

  • In the densest forests the trees, struggling through the tangle of underwood to the light, are often 150 ft.

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Words that mention tangle in the Dictionary

Words near tangle in the Thesaurus