entanglement

Etymology

It is formed from English entangle + -ment.^[2][3][4][5] The verb entangle, recorded from the early 15th century in Etymonline's dating, is en- added to tangle,^[3][2] and the OED suggests that it may first have referred to boats or oars caught in tangle, seaweed, although its earliest quotations already have the wider sense.^[2] An older spelling was intanglement.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1535, in the sense of the act of entangling or the state of being entangled.^[6][7] The Shorter Oxford puts it in the late 16th century,^[4] Etymonline in the 1630s, as "that which entangles",^[3] and the OED's first quotation is from Milton's translation of Bucer (1644), for something that entangles or ensnares.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

In the OED's record the earliest sense is something that catches or holds a person or thing, a snare or a complication that confuses a matter.^[2][8] The action or state of being entangled is recorded from 1687, in Henry More,^[2][3] and Johnson (1755) gave it two senses, the involution of something intricate or adhesive, and perplexity or a puzzle.^[9] In the 19th century it was specialized in war: a barrier of felled trees, stakes or wire to hold up an enemy's advance (1834),^[2][4] later typically of barbed wire,^[7][10] and in naval use a cable with spars lashed to it, stretched across a harbour mouth (1888).^[2] From the mid-19th century it also meant a compromising relationship, especially a love affair.^[4][8][11] Etymonline notes that the phrase foreign entanglements, often credited to George Washington's Farewell Address (1796), does not appear there, though he warned against such ties; it is found in William Coxe's memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole (1798).^[3] In 1935 Schrödinger used entanglement in physics for a correlation between two separate quantum systems whose joint behaviour differs from that of the two taken apart.^[2]

Timeline

• 1535 – the act of entangling, or the state of being entangled.^[6][7]
• 1644 – something that entangles; a snare or complication.^[2][8]
• 1687 – the action of entangling; a confused medley.^[2]
• 1834 – a military barrier to hinder an enemy.^[2]
• mid 19th century – a compromising relationship or love affair.^[4][8]
• 1888 – a cable and spars barring a harbour mouth.^[2]
• 1935 – in physics, a correlation between quantum systems.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of entangling, or the state of being entangled: Many seabirds die from entanglement in discarded nets.^[7][12][5]
2. Something that entangles; a snare or complication.^[5][2][11]
3. A difficult or compromising relationship, especially a love affair: He avoided any romantic entanglement that summer.^[11][10][12]
4. A barrier of stakes and barbed wire put up to hold back enemy soldiers.^{[7][10][12][2]}
5. (physics) A correlation between the states of two or more quantum systems, such that they cannot be described independently of each other.^[2]

Related words

• entangle
• tangle
• disentanglement

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), 5th ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press