Tangled

How to spell tangled

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tangled

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tangled mean?

1. adjectiveTwisted together into a knotted, disordered mass.
2. verbTwisted or caught up together in a confused, knotted way (past tense of tangle).

Tangled in a sentence

• adjective

  A mess of tangled cables filled the drawer behind the television.

• verb

  The fishing line tangled around the boat's propeller within minutes.

• adjective

  Her tangled hair needed a thorough brushing after the windy walk.

• verb

  The kite string tangled in the branches of the tall oak.

Where does tangled come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The word descends from the verb 'tangle', which appears in Middle English around the 1300s, most likely borrowed from a Scandinavian source; it is closely related to a dialectal Swedish word 'taggla', meaning to work in a disorderly way or to entangle. The earliest English uses described seaweed and loose threads becoming twisted together, and from there the sense broadened to anything knotted, snarled, or hopelessly mixed up. The figurative meaning, a confused or complicated situation, grew naturally out of the literal image of knotted cord. The form 'tangled' is simply 'tangle' plus the regular '-ed' ending, which is why the silent first 'e' of 'tangle' disappears: 'tangle' drops its 'e' before the suffix, giving 'tangled' rather than 'tangleed'. Because the word is built so transparently, the only real spelling caution is remembering the 'g' followed by 'l' in the middle.

How the word is built

• tangle (to twist together confusedly)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)