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What is "disentangle"

Crossword clues for disentangle

disentangle
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
disentangle
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
try
▪ It came open at once, and she leaned in, trying to disentangle the unconscious woman from her seatbelt.
▪ Our concern here is not to try to disentangle New Liberalism from Fabian socialist thought.
▪ Let's try to disentangle and clarify some of them.
▪ The next few hours were spent in a daze while Lucy tried to disentangle the confusion in her bewildered mind.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Investigators had to disentangle Maxwell's complicated financial affairs.
▪ The balls of wool were all mixed up, and I couldn't disentangle them.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As these examples suggest, it becomes increasingly difficult to disentangle royal and ducal retinues.
▪ However, they can be disentangled sufficiently to allow our study of lexical semantics to proceed.
▪ In politics, it is seldom easy to disentangle what is right from what is handy.
▪ It is hard to disentangle propaganda from fantasy.
▪ One arm disentangled itself from the covers, her fingers curling indolently into the fine cotton of the quilt.
▪ Our concern here is not to try to disentangle New Liberalism from Fabian socialist thought.
▪ The reasons for these variations are difficult to disentangle.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
disentangle

disentangle \dis`en*tan"gle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Disentangled; p. pr. & vb. n. Disentangling.]

  1. To free from entanglement; to release from a condition of being intricately and confusedly involved or interlaced; to reduce to orderly arrangement; to straighten out; as, to disentangle a skein of yarn.

  2. To extricate from complication and perplexity; disengage from embarrassing connection or intermixture; to disembroil; to set free; to separate.

    To disentangle truth from error.
    --Stewart.

    To extricate and disentangle themselves out of this labyrinth.
    --Clarendon.

    A mind free and disentangled from all corporeal mixtures.
    --Bp. Stillingfleet.

    Syn: To loose; extricate; disembarrass; disembroil; clear; evolve; disengage; separate; detach.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
disentangle

1590s; see dis- + entangle. Related: Disentangled; disentangling.

Wiktionary
disentangle

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To free something from entanglement; to extricate or unknot 2 (context transitive English) To unravel a mystery etc 3 (context intransitive English) To become free or untangled

WordNet
disentangle

  1. v. release from entanglement of difficulty; "I cannot extricate myself from this task" [syn: extricate, untangle, disencumber]

  2. extricate from entanglement; "Can you disentangle the cord?" [syn: unsnarl, straighten out] [ant: entangle, entangle]

  3. free from involvement or entanglement; "How can I disentangle myself from her personal affiars?" [syn: disinvolve, disembroil]

  4. separate the tangles of [syn: unwind]

  5. smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb; "comb your hair before dinner"; "comb the wool" [syn: comb, comb out]

Usage examples of "disentangle".

The Blackshirt on top of me was trying to disentangle himself, the reek of him and the one underneath me filling my nostrils.

In the end Blix had to help him out, disentangling the lines foot by foot with a patience that seemed to Condy little short of superhuman.

Piper, quite unable to disentangle a brother for Louey out of the new family that had accrued to him.

If, at any point, these two dominions may seem to touch and intersect it is our Prince who disentangles, by his decree, the twisted thread.

Few earthly economists have been able to disentangle themselves from patriotisms and politics, and their obsession has always been international trade.

Notwithstanding these accumulated oppressions, he still persevered with fortitude in his endeavours to disentangle himself from this maze of misery.

He noted the perfectly ordinary bath, the trim Amazon with a ring in her nose holding the lid-sized sheet of Plexiglas, the circle of hushed expectancy, his own emotions on a muddled spin, impossible to disentangle the slightest guide to the truth of the moment.

Presently, feeling some slight stir of Service decency and aerodrome behaviour, they disentangled and drove on round the runway.

Cleta tried to disentangle herself from the strangling clutch of the thin arms, but Linnit gripped at her in frenzied terror, and Cleta could not get away without hurting her.

Saint, and heard the contortionist effects blasphemously disentangling themselves as he closed the door behind him.

We shall never, probably, disentangle the inextricable web of affinities between the members of any one class.

The Archchancellor disentangled himself from the remains of his chair.

But for all that I would train a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, according to the simplest and best creed I could disentangle from those barbarisms, and I would in every way try to keep up in young persons that standard of reverence for all sacred subjects which may, without any violent transition, grow and ripen into the devotion of later years.

The machine’s ability in this respect was now quite passable although, mainly as a result of having conversed with many and varied individuals, it had not yet fully established a way to disentangle formal English constructions from American colloquialisms, a defect that sometimes yielded hilarious results.

He hurried to his feet as Kreacher disentangled himself and, bowing low to Harry, croaked, “Kreacher has returned with the thief Mundungus Fletcher, Master.