Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A difficult or intricate situation; an entanglement.
- noun A confused or complicated disagreement.
- noun Archaic A confused heap; a tangle.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An intricate and perplexing state of affairs; a misunderstanding of a complicated nature, as between persons or nations; an entanglement.
- noun An intricate or complicated plot, as against a person, or of a romance or drama.
- noun In music, a passage in which the rhythms of different voice-parts are conflicting or contradictory.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An intricate, complicated plot, as of a drama or work of fiction.
- noun A complicated and embarrassing state of things; a serious misunderstanding or disagreement, especially one that is bitter.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a
complicated situation ; anentanglement
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a very embarrassing misunderstanding
- noun an intricate and confusing interpersonal or political situation
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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What's been a little surprising about this Caprio imbroglio is that it took some days for the climax to arrive.
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What's been a little surprising about this Caprio imbroglio is that it took some days for the climax to arrive.
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"This free-speech imbroglio is another example of Park Service leadership with its head in the sand, waiting to get sued rather than affirmatively addressing issues before they end up in court," Ruch said.
Permit process eased for gatherings at national parks Ed O'Keefe 2010
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"This free-speech imbroglio is another example of Park Service leadership with its head in the sand, waiting to get sued rather than affirmatively addressing issues before they end up in court," Ruch said.
Permit process eased for gatherings at national parks Ed O'Keefe 2010
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As crises go, the Clinton-Lewinsky imbroglio is now an absurdist, bathetic footnote to what was in fact significant about that era: the evolution of finance in a culture of deregulation and the evolution of jihadism against the United States.
Time For A Slow-Word Movement Trevor Butterworth 2009
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"This free speech imbroglio is another example of Park Service leadership with its head in the sand, waiting to get sued rather than affirmatively addressing issues before they end up in court," Ruch said.
Need for permits eased at national parks Ed O 2010
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The Williams imbroglio is teachable, but its lessons actually point in the opposite direction: America's public media system, including NPR, requires more funding, not less.
Why Fox News should help fund NPR Steve Coll 2010
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Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales takes to Capitol Hill to testify today, it's worth keeping in mind what this whole imbroglio is really about.
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Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales takes to Capitol Hill to testify today, it's worth keeping in mind what this whole imbroglio is really about.
Archive 2007-04-01 2007
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Talk of a new cold war and of punishing Russia for the Georgian imbroglio is short-sighted, argues Peter Sain ley Berry ....
rolig commented on the word imbroglio
"The one time he Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama explicitly addressed the issue of race, in his speech in Philadelphia on March 18 of this year – during the imbroglio over Reverend Jeremiah Wright – he took pains to show that he understood white anxieties about blacks."
– Elizabeth Drew, "The Truth About the Election," New York Review of Books, 18 December 2008 – 14 January 2009, 94.
December 14, 2008
xntrek commented on the word imbroglio
(*) etymology: italian - from imbrogliare to entangle; from middle french - embrouiller,
(*) would assume most english speakers would utilise embroil
May 8, 2009
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word imbroglio
I think the definition that is used more widely is an equal cross between the first and the third of the given definitions on this page.
July 18, 2009
5814738 commented on the word imbroglio
"The three small figures disappeared into the dimly lit streets of Sobek Croix, where gaslight was brown and half-hearted where it existed at all. Behind them the enormous imbroglio of colour, metal, glass, sugar and sweat continued to pour its noise and light pollution into the sky." From Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.
October 1, 2011