tangled

tangled
    adj 1: in a confused mass; "pushed back her tangled hair"; "the
           tangled ropes" [ant: {untangled}]
    2: highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious; "the
       Byzantine tax structure"; "Byzantine methods for holding on
       to his chairmanship"; "convoluted legal language";
       "convoluted reasoning"; "the plot was too involved"; "a
       knotty problem"; "got his way by labyrinthine maneuvering";
       "Oh, what a tangled web we weave"- Sir Walter Scott;
       "tortuous legal procedures"; "tortuous negotiations lasting
       for months" [syn: {Byzantine}, {convoluted}, {involved},
       {knotty}, {tangled}, {tortuous}]
    

Tangle \Tan"gle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Tangled}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Tangling}.] [A frequentative fr. tang seaweed; hence, to
   twist like seaweed. See {Tang} seaweed, and cf. {Tangle}, n.]
   1. To unite or knit together confusedly; to interweave or
      interlock, as threads, so as to make it difficult to
      unravel the knot; to entangle; to ravel.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To involve; to insnare; to entrap; as, to be tangled in
      lies. "Tangled in amorous nets." --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

            When my simple weakness strays,
            Tangled in forbidden ways.            --Crashaw.
      [1913 Webster]
    

38 Moby Thesaurus words for "tangled":
      Byzantine, balled up, complex, complicated, confounded, confused,
      convoluted, crabbed, daedal, devious, elaborate, embrangled,
      entangled, fouled up, implicated, intricate, involuted, involved,
      knotted, labyrinthian, labyrinthine, loused up, many-faceted,
      matted, mazy, meandering, messed up, mixed up, mucked up,
      multifarious, perplexed, ramified, roundabout, screwed up, snarled,
      subtle, tangly, twisted