different between tangle vs befoul

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?tæ?.??l/
• Rhymes: -æ???l

Etymology 1

From Middle English tanglen, probably of North Germanic origin, compare Swedish taggla (“to disorder”), Old Norse þ?ngull, þang (“tangle; seaweed”), see Etymology 2 below.

Verb

tangle (third-person singular simple present tangles, present participle tangling, simple past and past participle tangled)

1. (intransitive) to become mixed together or intertwined
2. (intransitive) to enter into an argument, conflict, dispute, or fight

3. (transitive) to mix together or intertwine
4. (transitive) to catch and hold; to ensnare.
   • 1646, Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple

     When my simple weakness strays, / Tangled in forbidden ways.

Synonyms

• (to become mixed together or intertwined): dishevel, tousle
• (to enter into an argument, conflict, dispute, or fight): argue, conflict, dispute, fight
• (to mix together or intertwine): entangle, knot, mat, snarl
• (to catch and hold): entrap

Antonyms

• (to mix together or intertwine): untangle, unsnarl

Derived terms

• betangle
• entangle

Translations

Noun

tangle (plural tangles)

1. A tangled twisted mass.
2. A complicated or confused state or condition.

3. An argument, conflict, dispute, or fight.
4. (mathematics) A region of the projection of a knot such that the knot crosses its perimeter exactly four times.
5. A form of art which consists of sections filled with repetitive patterns.

Synonyms

• (tangled twisted mass): knot, mess, snarl
• (complicated or confused state or condition): maze, snarl
• (argument, conflict, dispute, or fight): argument, conflict, dispute, fight

Derived terms

• tanglefish (Syngnathus acus)
• tanglesome

Translations

Etymology 2

Of North Germanic origin, such as Danish tang or Swedish tång, from Old Norse þongull, þang. See also Norwegian tongul, Faroese tongul, Icelandic þöngull.

Noun

tangle (countable and uncountable, plural tangles)

2. Any large type of seaweed, especially a species of Laminaria.
   • 1849, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, 10:

     Than if with thee the roaring wells / Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; / And hands so often clasped in mine, / Should toss with tangle and with shells.

   • 1917, Kenneth Macleod (editor) "The Road to the Isles", in Songs of the Hebrides:

     You've never smelled the tangle o' the Isles.

3. (in the plural) An instrument consisting essentially of an iron bar to which are attached swabs, or bundles of frayed rope, or other similar substances, used to capture starfishes, sea urchins, and other similar creatures living at the bottom of the sea.
4. (Scotland) Any long hanging thing, even a lanky person.

Hyponyms

• kombu

Further reading

• tangle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• tangle in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• tangle at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• gelant, langet, netlag

English

Etymology

be- +? foul

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??fa?l/
• Rhymes: -a?l

Verb

befoul (third-person singular simple present befouls, present participle befouling, simple past and past participle befouled)

1. To make foul; to soil; to contaminate, pollute.
   • 1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy, London: for the author, “Avignon to Genoa,” p. 34,^[1]

     These heights are a desirable retreat, for less picturesque reasons—as an escape from a compound of vile smells perpetually arising from a great harbour full of stagnant water, and befouled by the refuse of innumerable ships with all sorts of cargoes: which, in hot weather, is dreadful in the last degree.

   • 1897, Robert Gwynneddon Davies (translator), The Sleeping Bard by Ellis Wynne, London: Simplkon, Marshall & Co., Part I,^[2]

     At last, what with a round of blasphemy, and the whole crowd with clay pistols belching smoke and fire and slander of their neighbours, and the floor already befouled with dregs and spittle, I feared lest viler deeds should happen, and craved to depart.

   • 1983, Mary Stewart, The Wicked Day, New York: William Morrow, Chapter 5, p. 53,^[3]

     Only the four walls of his home still stood, blackened and smoking with the sluggish, stinking smoke that befouled the sea-wind.

   • 1997, Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid, “Echo and Narcissus” in Paul Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, p. 919,^[4]

     There was a pool of perfect water.

     […] No cattle

     Had slobbered their muzzles in it

     And befouled it.

2. (specifically) To defecate on, to soil with excrement.
   • 1666, George Alsop, A Character of the Province of Mary-Land, London: Peter Dring, Preface,^[5]

     For its an ill Bird will befoule her own Nest […]

   • 1748, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, London: J. Osborn, Volume I, Chapter 12, p. 91,^[6]

     “ […] But pray what smell is that? Sure your lapdog has befoul’d himself;—let me catch hold of the nasty cur, I’ll teach him better manners.”

3. (figuratively) To stain or mar (for example with infamy or disgrace).
   • 1894, Hall Caine, The Manxman, London: Heinemann, Part 5, p. 282,^[7]

     For three days Pete bore himself according to his wont, thinking to silence the evil tongues of the little world about him, and keep sweet and alive the dear name which they were waiting to befoul and destroy.

   • 1923, James Branch Cabell, The High Place, London: John Lane, Part 2, Chapter 15,^[8]

     “ […] you combine a vulgar atheism and an iconoclastic desire to befoul the sacred ideas of the average man or woman, collectively scorned as the bourgeoisie——”

   • 1927, Frances Noyes Hart, The Bellamy Trial, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929, Chapter 5, p. 159,^[9]

     There she sits before you, gentlemen, betrayed by her husband, befouled by every idle tongue that wags […]

4. To entangle or run against so as to impede motion. (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

Synonyms

• (stain or mar): besmirch, sully, tarnish

Related terms

• afoul

Translations