Both Uses of
entangled
in
The Scarlet Letter
- And then what a happiness would it have been could Hester Prynne have heard her clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children.
p. 87.4 *entangled = mixed together
- But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face.†
p. 61.5disentangling = removing something that was caught by something else; or separating or smoothing things that were twisted together in a confusing massstandard prefix: The prefix "dis-" in disentangling reverses the meaning of entangling. This is the same pattern as seen in words like disagree, disconnect, and disappear.
Definitions:
-
(1)
(entangled as in: entangled in the branches) caught in
or:
twisted together into a confusing mass -
(2)
(entangled as in: entangled in local politics) deeply involve; or intermix with complications or difficulties
-
(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Less commonly, entangle can refer in quantum physics to a linkage between separated particles.