To entangle. Hence to unsnarl is to unravel, to disentangle.
1814. [Cutting it all round] prevents the hair from snarling.—Analectic Mag., iv. 64 (July).
1824. Seeing her snarled hair, [he] said that her head looked as if she had six mice nests built in it, and the seventh was building.—Woodstock (Vt.) Observer, June 1: from the Boston Telegraph.
1852. The clay is refractory and snappish; he still trys it, but it will break, and snap, and snarl.—H. C. Kimball at the Mormon Tabernacle, Oct. 9: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 161.
1856. I think this evening he is unsnarling some twine which he hath purchased and tangled, in order that he may be the more expert thereat when he goeth to the angle…. I have many snarled lines, and they shall be at thy service.—Knick. Mag., xlviii. 261 (Sept.).
1861. It would be sin, therefore, if he appears with his hair long, bushy, snarled, dirty, and hanging carelessly about his shoulders.—Brigham Young, Feb. 17: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ ix. 123.
