ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED1.] In the senses of the vb.: a. Caught or held fast in anything tangled; ensnared. b. Involved in difficulties; embarrassed, perplexed. † c. Of an estate: Encumbered (obs.). d. Interlaced; complicated, intricate.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. 30. Such as in Scripture are to our capacitie doubtfull and entangled.
1598. J. Dickenson, Greene in Conc. (1878), 134. Now wrought she on his intangled wits as on an anuill.
1653. Milton, Hirelings (1659), 139–40. The obscure and intangld wood of antiquitie.
1662. Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., III. i. § 7. 375. Nothing can bee a greater evidence of an intangled mind.
1670. Marvell, Lett. to Mayor of Hull, Wks. I. 160. The discourses growing long and intangled, one of the members … rose up.
1680. Burnet, Rochester, 167. To recover an intangled Estate.
1735. Somerville, Chase, I. 160. Seek’st thou for Hounds to … brush th’ Entangled Covert?
1763. Falconer, Shipwr., II. (1819), 47. All the entangled cords in order placed.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., III. 329. Heaps of entangled conveyances or wills of a various obscurity.
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., ii. 121. A somewhat entangled and delicate question.
1862. H. Spencer, First Princ., II. xx. (1875), 440. Each deposit must be differently distributed by the entangled currents.
Hence † Entangledly adv., in an entangled manner. † Entangledness, the state of being entangled.
1611. Cotgr., Perplexement, perplexedly, intricately, intangledly, troublesomely.
1682. H. More, Contn. Remark. Stor., 41. It was usual with these Goblins … to wind all this Yarn on these old pieces of Lumber, so perplexedly and entangledly.
1611. Cotgr., Perplexité, intanglednesse.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, I. 241. Much of that intangledness which we find now in astronomy, would be taken away.
