To disentangle means to separate things that have become twisted, knotted, or confused together. When your shoelaces get tangled into a complicated knot, you need to carefully work through the loops and crossings to disentangle them. When holiday lights come out of storage as one giant snarled mess, someone has to patiently disentangle each strand.

The word works for physical tangles, like when you try to disentangle your hair after a windy day or separate two necklaces that have wound around each other. But it also applies to complicated situations. A detective might need to disentangle the truth from a witness's confusing story. A teacher might help disentangle a conflict between students by figuring out what actually happened versus what everyone thinks happened.

Disentangling usually requires patience and careful attention. You can't just yank on tangled fishing line or force apart a confusing situation. The word suggests working methodically to understand how things got twisted together so you can separate them properly. When scientists disentangle the causes of a problem, they're figuring out which factor causes what, untangling cause and effect until everything becomes clear.