tangle

verb

1. (transitive)To mix together or intertwine.
2. (intransitive)To become mixed together or intertwined.

   “Her hair was tangled from a day in the wind.”

   “By the afternoon it seemed as if the storm had passed and that frost was setting in; but in the evening the wind rose to gale force, bringing telegraph poles down like skittles and tangling power and telephone lines.”

3. (figuratively, intransitive)To enter into an argument, conflict, dispute, or fight.

   “Don't tangle with someone three times your size.”

   “He tangled with the law.”

   “Compared to the last time they'd tangled with the U.S. Navy's carriers, the antiaircraft fire had been much, much more effective, even if the Wildcats hadn't done particularly well in their intercepts. They couldn't know it, of course, but the officer aboard Enterprise who'd recommended recarpeting the ship with 20-mm Oerlikons had, at least partially, been listened to, and the effect on the Japanese Navy's elite aircrews had been devastating.”

   “After a few attempts at counseling, they separated in January 2015. Since then, they have tangled in the courts.”

4. (transitive)To catch and hold.

   “tangled in amorous nets”

   “When my simple weakness strays, / Tangled in forbidden ways.”

   “This is a book about the potential for the reclamation, reform, and enlightened transformation of the most expansive elements of the liberal tradition— that social and economic justice remain tangled in liberalism's web of pretentious institutions and betrayed promises is the reason for this battle from within.”

   “He spent the night at a friend's place unable to sleep and wondering how he got himself tangled in this mess.”

   “Why else would she have tangled him in spells of illusion to get him to keep her company?”

noun

1. A tangled twisted mass.
2. A complicated or confused state or condition.

   “I tried to sort through this tangle and got nowhere.”

   “Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.”

3. An argument, conflict, dispute, or fight.
4. A region of the projection of a knot such that the knot crosses its perimeter exactly four times.
5. A paired helical fragment of tau protein found in a nerve cell and associated with Alzheimer's disease.
6. A form of art which consists of sections filled with repetitive patterns.
7. (countable, uncountable)Any large type of seaweed, especially a species of Laminaria.

   “[…] if with thee the roaring wells ⁠Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; ⁠And hands so often clasp’d in mine, Should toss with tangle and with shells.”

   “You've never smelled the tangle o' the Isles.”

8. (countable, in-plural, uncountable)An instrument consisting essentially of an iron bar to which are attached swabs, or bundles of frayed rope, or other similar substances, used to capture starfishes, sea urchins, and other similar creatures living at the bottom of the sea.
9. (Scotland, countable, uncountable)Any long hanging thing, even a lanky person.

name

1. A barangay of Mexico, Pampanga, Philippines.