imbroglio
/ɪmˈbɹoʊljoʊ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.94 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A complicated situation; an entanglement.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "Your trip here will never quite go as planned. […] There may be strikes, mixed-up reservations, maddening imbrogli of all sorts. But they will be charming imbrogli because the Italian people are charming, down to the whimsical tone of their language."
- "I could have phoned you with all this, Tallulah, but knowing you as I have over the years, when you and I have both been a party to some of Duncan's little imbroglios, I thought I should talk to you in person."
- "He [Edward Michael Adler] was inducted into the imbroglio of the Vietnam War, which so many of his age group and middle class Orthodox Jewish upbringing easily avoided by staying in university or going into the clergy. He didn't."
- "[David] Cameron's decision to hold a referendum alters the chemistry of politics. The casual way he offered a simple Yes–No referendum to Scotland in 2011 has led to a quasi-insoluble imbroglio over the future of the British Constitution."
Etymology
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”)). Doublet of embroil.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *bʰrewh₁-, imbroglio, embrouiller
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪmˈbɹoʊljoʊ/
- British English: /ɪmˈbɹəʊljəʊ/