v. Also 7 enmash. [f. EN-1 + MESH.]
1. trans. To surround with meshes; to catch or entangle in, or as in, a net. Also of the net, and fig.
α. 1604. Shaks., Oth., II. iii. 367. The Net, That shall en-mash them all.
a. 1669. Le Blanc, in Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. cxix. 61. A gladiator with net and sword … endeavouring to enmesh any one who comes near him.
1831. Capt. Trelawny, Adv. Younger Son, I. 202. They have here a ring-fence of posts, in which the King of Candy is enmeshed.
1847. Grote, Greece, II. xi. III. 132. Declining to haul up the net when the fish were already enmeshed.
1884. W. H. Rideing, in Harper’s Mag., Sept., 499/1. Vines … enmeshing every stone in their tenacious threads.
β. 1870. Morris, Earthly Par., I. II. 606. A past song … Emmeshed for ever in the memory’s net.
γ. 1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., VII. 236. Spider … careful to observe when the fly is completely immeshed.
1853. C. Brontë, Villette, xvi. (1855), 160. I got immeshed in a network of turns unknown.
2. fig. To entrap, entangle; to make (thought) complicated.
α. 1822. Shelley, Let. Hunt. Debts, responsibilities, and expenses will enmesh you round about.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., xviii. 469. Buckingham’s career with Richard contains an impressive lesson on weakness enmeshed by unscrupulous strength.
β. 1870. Morris, Earthly Par., II. III. 242. Such things emmeshed his dying troubled thought.
γ. 1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. xv. The undesigning Boffin had become so far immeshed.
Hence Enmeshment, the state or condition of being enmeshed; entanglement.
1885. ‘C. E. Craddock’ (Miss Murfree), in Atlantic Monthly, April, 434/2. In that enchanted enmeshment were tangled all the fancies of the night.
1885. Punch, 30 May, 258. As concerns Egyptian darkness, and the Muscovite enmeshment.
