Meaning & use
untangled
Last updated
“untangled” is a form of “untangle”.
Meaning
verbtransitive
past tense and past participle of untangle: to remove knots or twists from something, or to make a complicated situation clear.
Grammar: Used as the past tense or past participle of untangle. It takes an object: She untangled the wires.
Patterns
- untangled something
- untangled from something
She patiently untangled the Christmas lights before hanging them on the tree.
The police finally untangled the complex web of lies.
His hair was so untangled after the wind that he couldn't comb it.
Common combinations
- untangled the knot
- He untangled the knot in his shoelaces.
- untangled the wires
- The technician untangled the wires behind the computer.
- untangled the mess
- It took hours to untangle the mess of legal documents.
Synonyms and how they differ
- unraveled
- Unraveled often suggests something coming apart, while untangled means it was successfully separated.
- disentangled
- Disentangled is more formal and often used for physical things; untangled is more common in everyday speech.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: untangled or untangled vs. entangled?
untangled vs untangled vs. entangled
Untangled means freed from knots; entangled means caught or twisted in something, often with a negative sense.
Practice
Choose the correct sentence:
Choose one answer.
Untangle takes a direct object (the necklace) and can be followed by 'from' to show what it was stuck in. The other options use incorrect prepositions or word order.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “untangled”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.