Etymology Dictionary

TANGLE,  to interweave, knot together confusedly, ensnare.  (Scand.)   'I tangell thynges so togyther that they can nat well be parted asonder, Jembrouille;' Palsgrave.   Levins has the comp. entangle.   To tangle is 'to keep twisting together like sea-weed;' a frequentative verb from tang, sb., sea-weed, a Northern word.—Dan. tang, Swed. tång, Icel. þang, kelp or bladder-wrack, a kind of sea-weed; whence the idea of confused heap.   We also find the dimin. Icel. þöngull, sea-weed.   Cf. Norman dialect tangon (a Norse word), explained by Métivier as Fucus flagelliformis.   (The G. tang, sea-weed, was borrowed from Scand.; for it begins with t, not d.)   The original form was THANGA, Fick, iii. 129; allied to Thong, q.v.   β. We also find tangle in the sense of sea-weed (Halliwell); and the verb to tangle may have been made directly from it.   It makes not great difference; cf. Icel. þöngull, as above.   Der. tangle, sb., which seems to be a later word than the verb, Milton, P.L. ix. 632; en-tangle, q.v.