imbroglio

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A complicated situation; an entanglement.

   Into the drawers and china pry, / Papers and books, a huge imbroglio! / Under a tea-cup he might lie, / Or creased, like dogs-ears, in a folio.

Borrowed from Italian imbroglio (“tangle, entanglement, muddle”) (im-, alternative form of in- (prefix forming verbs denoting derivation) + broglio (“confusion; intrigue, fraud, rigging, stuffing”); see also imbrogliare (“to tangle”)), cognate with and probably from an earlier form of French embrouiller (“to embroil, muddle”) (em- (“em-”), a form of en- (“en-”, prefix meaning ‘caused’) + brouiller (“to confuse, mix up”)).

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