Disentangle

/[ˌdɪsɪnˈtæŋɡəɫ]/ verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To free something from entanglement; to extricate or unknot. transitive

    "I had to disentangle him from his own shoelaces."

  2. 2
    smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb wordnet
  3. 3
    To unravel; to separate into discrete components or units. transitive

    "This overlapping is reflective of hybrid languages, where certain features (phonetic, orthographic, semantic, syntactic) are also difficult to disentangle."

  4. 4
    extricate from entanglement wordnet
  5. 5
    To become free or untangled. intransitive
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    separate the tangles of wordnet
  2. 7
    release from entanglement of difficulty wordnet
  3. 8
    free from involvement or entanglement wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
disinvolveextricateunbraidunsnarluntangleuntangle

Example

More examples

"I'm not sure what's the best way to disentangle this."

Etymology

From dis- + entangle.

More for "disentangle"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.