Clutter vs Tangle - What's the difference?
clutter | tangle | Synonyms |
A confused disordered jumble of things.
* L'Estrange
*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, title= (obsolete) Clatter; confused noise.
Background echos, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
(countable) A group of cats;
* 2008 , John Robert Colombo, The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories , Introduction
To fill something with .
*{{quote-magazine, title=No hiding place
, date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist)
(obsolete) To clot or coagulate, like blood.
To make a confused noise; to bustle.
* Tennyson
to become mixed together or intertwined
to be forced into some kind of situation
to enter into an argument, conflict, dispute, or fight
to mix together or intertwine
to catch and hold
* Milton
* Crashaw
A tangled twisted mass.
A complicated or confused state or condition.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= An argument, conflict, dispute, or fight.
(mathematics) A region of the projection of a knot such that the knot crosses its perimeter exactly four times.
Any large type of seaweed, especially a species of Laminaria .
* 1849 , , In Memoriam , 10:
(in the plural) An instrument consisting essentiallly of an iron bar to which are attached swabs, or bundles of frayed rope, or other similar substances, used to capture starfishes, sea urchins, and other similar creatures living at the bottom of the sea.
As nouns the difference between clutter and tangle
is that clutter is a confused disordered jumble of things while tangle is a tangled twisted mass.As verbs the difference between clutter and tangle
is that clutter is to fill something with clutter while tangle is to become mixed together or intertwined.clutter
English
Noun
(-)- He saw what a clutter there was with huge, overgrown pots, pans, and spits.
William E. Conner
An Acoustic Arms Race, volume=101, issue=3, page=206-7, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter' by hiding in it. Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the ' clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.}}
- (Jonathan Swift)
- Organizing ghost stories is like herding a clutter of cats: the phenomenon resists organization and classification.
Derived terms
* surface clutter * volume clutterVerb
(en verb)citation, passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.}}
- (Holland)
- It [the goose] cluttered here, it chuckled there.
tangle
English
(wikipedia tangle)Etymology 1
Origin uncertain; apparently a variant form of (tagle).Verb
(tangl)- Her hair was tangled from a day in the wind.
- Don't tangle with someone three times your size.
- He tangled with the law.
- Tangled in amorous nets.
- When my simple weakness strays, / Tangled in forbidden ways.
Synonyms
* (to become mixed together or intertwined) dishevel, tousle * (to be forced into some kind of situation) drag, drag in, embroil, sweep, sweep up * argue, conflict, dispute, fight * (to mix together or intertwine) entangle, knot, mat, snarl * (to catch and hold) entrapAntonyms
* (to mix together or intertwine) untangle, unsnarlNoun
(en noun)Boundary problems, passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}
Synonyms
* (tangled twisted mass) knot, mess, snarl * (complicated or confused state or condition) maze, snarl * argument, conflict, dispute, fightEtymology 2
Of Scandinavian origin; compare Norwegian tongul, Faroese tongul, Icelandic .Noun
(en noun)- Than if with thee the roaring wells / Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; / And hands so often clasped in mine, / Should toss with tangle and with shells.