What's the difference between unravel and untangle?

Unravel


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To disentangle; to disengage or separate the threads of; as, to unravel a stocking.
  • (v. t.) Hence, to clear from complication or difficulty; to unfold; to solve; as, to unravel a plot.
  • (v. t.) To separate the connected or united parts of; to throw into disorder; to confuse.
  • (v. i.) To become unraveled, in any sense.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) However, as the plan unravels, Professor Marcus's team turn on one another, with painfully (if painfully funny) results.
  • (2) Her black persona unravelled this week when Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal, a couple named on her Montana birth certificate as her biological parents, told Spokane’s KREM 2 News that her ancestry was German and Czech, with traces of Native American.
  • (3) Putting all this information together we can begin to unravel the problem of how the Listeria forms the cytoskeleton and what is the biological purpose of this tail.
  • (4) Thus, 14.7K appears to be a general inhibitor of TNF cytolysis, and as such should be an important tool in unraveling the mechanism of TNF cytolysis.
  • (5) This communication reviews the almost 40 years of studies by Jack Metcoff, MD, and coworkers to unravel the causes of fetal malnutrition and their efforts to prevent it.
  • (6) Because the housing crisis goes far beyond us Focus E15 mums | Jasmin Stone Read more Annette May, 68, from Lambeth Annette May has watched with mounting dismay as the community fabric of the council estate where she has lived for 44 years steadily unravels.
  • (7) Substantial progress has been made in unraveling the organization of the circadian system of Aplysia californica.
  • (8) The free ends of the microtubules appear unraveled; they are seen first as single elements, then as doublets, and finally are arranged into a cylinder.
  • (9) Unraveled filaments reconstituted from NF-L plus either NF-M or NF-H indicated that NF-M and NF-H are incorporated evenly into each protofibril.
  • (10) Athens was unravelling into chaos, unable to form a government and forced into fresh elections , plunging the markets into freefall as Europe's leaders abandoned any pretence that a Greek exit from the euro might not be imminent.
  • (11) The chancellor leaves the Treasury trying to hide the cost of his mistakes while his reputation for economic competence continues to unravel."
  • (12) With the eurozone unravelling and world markets in turmoil, threatening even the meagre recovery the UK economy had achieved since the onset of the credit crunch, he repeatedly evokes a mood of national emergency to explain why the coalition he forged with David Cameron is the right government for the times.
  • (13) Without a rescue, president Nicos Anastasiades said Cyprus would default and threaten to unravel investor confidence in the eurozone.
  • (14) This section was memorably captured by the computer and security expert Caspar Bowden , who wrote: "Interpreting that section requires the unravelling of a triple-nested inversion of meanings across six cross-referenced subsections, linked to a dozen other cross-linked definitions, which are all dependent on a highly ambiguous 'notwithstanding'."
  • (15) If the statistics aren't right the whole story, beautiful as it is, unravels," he said.
  • (16) But sometimes a smile is not enough.” As the latest proposed deal to avoid Greece’s bankruptcy threatens to unravel , a row is raging on Rhodes and several other Greek islands over fears that they are being unfairly targeted.
  • (17) George Osborne’s claim that the government secured a major corporation tax deal with Google appear to be unravelling after it emerged that a quarter of the £130m recovered by HM Revenue & Customs related to the US company’s share options scheme.
  • (18) I have lived in Greece my whole life and experienced the economic crisis as it unraveled the past years.
  • (19) As the field of human genetics successfully continues to unravel the secrets of an individual's genetic makeup, the social processes of stigmatization and ostracism of those with "undesirable" traits have the potential to increase.
  • (20) There's got to be a deal here between the taxpayer and the scheme member and that deal is going to unravel if the people in the public sector say they will not contemplate change."

Untangle


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To loose from tangles or intricacy; to disentangle; to resolve; as, to untangle thread.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Loose ends in efforts to untangle the Gordian knot of Syria | Letters Read more “What is important is Russia has to not be engaged in any activities against anybody but [Isis],” secretary of state John Kerry said.
  • (2) Loose ends in efforts to untangle the Gordian knot of Syria | Letters Read more Moscow, however, angrily dismissed the reports as false, the TASS news agency reported.
  • (3) Andrew Romano, Newsweek How would these eloquent know-it-alls – these brainiacs bent on "speaking truth to stupid" – untangle the knotty threads of information that make actual breaking news so difficult to sort out?
  • (4) The Apple-Samsung case has so far lasted for four weeks, and the jurors are expected to deliberate for another week as they try to untangle the complex forms – in which they have to decide, among other things, whether any of 21 different Samsung tablets and smartphones infringed any of 10 different patents on functionality – such as the "rubber band" effect when trying to scroll past the top of a list – and whether the "trade dress" of Apple's products is sufficiently "famous" to merit protection.
  • (5) Such agreement to begin reining in respective proxies is necessary in the process of untangling the mess of foreign interests that has been tearing Syria apart for the last five years.
  • (6) Dawn Foster Contributing editor, Guardian housing network Central government: untangling British and European laws could cause years of instability Amid the uncertainty around what a UK vote to leave the EU could mean for central government, one thing is clear.
  • (7) The objective of the current study was to untangle the effects of a number of variables likely to affect autonomic activation during human speech.
  • (8) In the abscence of a priori knowledge of the functional form, it is difficult to untangle true effects from spurious ones.
  • (9) A world where cycling could become so safe it was actually relaxing again, and traffic jams untangled themselves, and pollution didn’t choke cities to death after all.
  • (10) "Polygraph was an act of mourning, a way to untangle very, very dark feelings about that event," Lepage says.
  • (11) Bond covertly enlists Moneypenny ( Naomie Harris ) and Q ( Ben Whishaw ) to help him seek out Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), the daughter of his old nemesis Mr White (Jesper Christensen), who may hold the clue to untangling the web of SPECTRE.
  • (12) Beyond SW1, it is hoped that businesses will volunteer to untangle themselves from the old boy net.
  • (13) I was faced with a labyrinth of political, religious and cultural elements that from the outside seemed impossible to understand much less untangle.
  • (14) Here’s a three-point plan to untangle it | Andrew Allen Read more While Southern’s plans for onboard supervisors have been approved by the independent rail safety body, the RMT general secretary, Mick Cash, told the transport select committee that there were genuine safety concerns over making drivers responsible for closing the doors on crowded platforms, and that there were insufficient guarantees over future staffing of trains.
  • (15) Seabirds are one of most threatened groups of birds in the world, but untangling the effects of multiple threats to seabirds is a challenge, one which underlines the importance of ongoing research such as this which helps determine vulnerability of different species.” The findings are published in the journal Science Advances.
  • (16) I had plenty of fashion cupboard experience, but to them I was new so my first task was to untangle a massive pile of coat hangers.
  • (17) However, while clinical observations of human behavior are particularly relevant, it is difficult to untangle confounding factors and thus determine unequivocal causal relationships.
  • (18) The move is part of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s bid to “untangle” stalled investments from red tape.
  • (19) The weather had cleared and Machado was back on the roof, untangling wire, when Bumba’s summit suddenly cratered out.
  • (20) Ellis is very well-informed about the complexities of disability policy, after spending thousands of hours untangling refused benefit applications, and attending hundreds of tribunals with clients, fighting for decisions not to award disability benefit to be overturned.