Definition

1. Verb (transitive):

   • To free something from tangles or complications: To separate and straighten out something that is twisted, knotted, or intertwined.
   • To free someone or something from a difficult, complicated, or restrictive situation: To remove or release from involvement, entanglement, or a complex state.

2. Verb (intransitive):

   • To become free from tangles or complications: To come apart or become straightened out from a tangled state.

Usage Examples

• Verb (transitive):

  • It took her an hour to disentangle the knots from the old fishing net.
  • The therapist helped him disentangle his feelings of guilt from the actual events.
  • The first step is to disentangle the facts from the rumors.

• Verb (intransitive):

  • With patience, the snarled yarn will slowly disentangle.
  • The political alliances began to disentangle after the treaty was signed.

Advanced Usage

• "to disentangle oneself from something": To deliberately free yourself from a complicated, restrictive, or undesirable situation or relationship.

  • He sought legal advice to disentangle himself from the business partnership.

• Used in abstract or figurative contexts: Often applied to complex ideas, arguments, or emotions.

  • Her book attempts to disentangle the myth from the historical truth.

Variants and Related Words

• Disentanglement (noun): The act or process of disentangling.

  • The disentanglement of the company's finances was a complex task.

• Entangle (verb): The opposite action; to twist together or involve in a complicated situation.

Synonyms

• Untangle: To undo tangles (very close in meaning, often interchangeable).
• Unravel: To separate threads; to solve or explain something complicated.
• Extricate: To free from a constraint or difficulty (emphasizes removal from entanglement).
• Unsnarl: To remove snarls or tangles.

Related Phrasal Verbs

(Note: "Disentangle" itself is not commonly used with particles to form phrasal verbs. The action is typically expressed by the verb alone or with the preposition "from.")

Related Idioms

• "To separate the wheat from the chaff": This idiom relates to the figurative sense of disentangling, meaning to distinguish valuable things from worthless ones.
• "To sort out": A common phrasal verb with a similar meaning of resolving a complicated situation, though it implies more organization.

Verb

1. smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb
   • comb your hair before dinner
   • comb the wool
2. separate the tangles of
3. free from involvement or entanglement
   • How can I disentangle myself from her personal affairs?
4. extricate from entanglement
   • Can you disentangle the cord?
5. release from entanglement of difficulty
   • I cannot extricate myself from this task