Untanglable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Impossible to separate into straight, unknotted strands once it has become knotted or confused together
2. So tightly knotted or snarled that it cannot be loosened or sorted out into its separate parts
3. Describing something that resists every attempt to free its twisted or intertwined components from one another

Etymology: Untanglable is a plain formation: the verb "untangle," which comes from "tangle" with the reversing prefix "un-," plus the suffix "-able," meaning capable of being. "Tangle" is related to "tangle" in the sense of an entangling snarl, and its meaning of tying things into a confused knot goes back to the Middle English period, when the verb was in use for knots and nets. Adding "-able" to a verb yields adjectives meaning "able to be done to," so "untanglable" describes something that cannot be unknotted. The word is a negated form, not a rare coinage in its own right. Its sense follows directly from its parts: "un-" reverses the action of "tangle," and "-able" turns the result into a quality. It therefore names a knot that resists every attempt to loosen it, a meaning the parts carry with no shift in sense.