disentangle

From dis- +‎ entangle.

• IPA^(key): [ˌdɪsɪnˈtæŋɡəɫ]

disentangle (third-person singular simple present disentangles, present participle disentangling, simple past and past participle disentangled)

1. (transitive) To free something from entanglement; to extricate or unknot.

   I had to disentangle him from his own shoelaces.

   • 2023 March 29, Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Clancy Cavnar, Religious Freedom and the Global Regulation of Ayahuasca, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN:

     In my own opinion, “criminal religious movements” (CRMs) is a more accurate and useful category than “cults.” It uses, although selectively, elements from the criminological tradition. It avoids the word “cult” and tries to disentangle the category from both the folk psychology of brainwashing and the politics of “extremism” in theology.

2. (transitive) To unravel; to separate into discrete components or units.
   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎^[1], page 10:

     This overlapping is reflective of hybrid languages, where certain features (phonetic, orthographic, semantic, syntactic) are also difficult to disentangle.

3. (intransitive) To become free or untangled.

• untangle

• tangle