ensnared 1 of 2

adjective

as in trapped

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words

ensnared

2 of 2

verb

past tense of ensnare
as in tangled
to catch or hold as if in a net parked just out of view, the state trooper was lying in wait to ensnare unwary speeders

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ensnared
Verb
This year, Murphy’s powers of persuasion ensnared her once more. — Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 30 Oct. 2026 Rousseff was impeached for accounting maneuvering in 2016 amid a sprawling corruption probe, which also ensnared Lula. — Arkansas Online, 26 Oct. 2026 The dragnet also ensnared countless ordinary citizens like my father. — Literary Hub, 26 Oct. 2026 That banking probe directly ensnared Bolsonaro himself, as well as powerful Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes, whom Bolsonaro’s supporters had tried to link to Lula. — Anthony W. Pereira, The Conversation, 26 Oct. 2026 The restriction has also ensnared the country’s interceptors to stop Russia’s drones, causing Ukraine to warn that the Starshield throttling risks civilian lives. — Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 23 Oct. 2026 Even leftist lawmakers support to some of those ideas in the wake of a corruption scandal that ensnared the court. — ABC News, 22 Oct. 2026 Related Articles Among the objects ensnared in the proceedings are roughly 30 Indigenous artifacts, including baskets, moccasins, textiles, and bone carvings. — Daniel Cassady, ARTnews.com, 20 Oct. 2026 Partners cannot tell which agreements will be ensnared in the next scandal, which encourages them to hedge. — Matias Spektor, Foreign Affairs, 2 Oct. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ensnared
  1. trapped
  2. tangled
  3. bound
  4. enslaved
Adjective
  • Keep the mulch a couple of inches away from the main stem of each rose to prevent trapped moisture that can cause rot.
    — Mary Marlowe Leverette, Southern Living, 6 Nov. 2026
  • Two decades later, Duckworth advocated for his evacuation when the surgeon became trapped in Gaza during a humanitarian medical mission.
    — Angela Haupt, Time, 4 Nov. 2026
Definition of trapped
Verb
  • Key-man risk Huang’s ouster raises questions around Nvidia’s ability to remain the de facto central bank of the AI boom — and the fate of billions of dollars of chip financing from a slew of Wall Street firms that are tangled up with the company.
    — Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 12 Nov. 2026
  • Karl’s recurrent palinopsia began two years ago after part of Karl’s right temporal lobe was removed because the blood vessels between the arteries and veins there were tangled.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 10 Nov. 2026
Definition of tangled
Adjective
  • The software does a decent job of automatically recognizing the edges of the paper, cropping or tilting pages when necessary, and flattening the curves characteristic of facing pages in bound books.
    — David English, PC Magazine, 4 Nov. 2026
  • The team checked this directly by computing how much of each galaxy's baryon budget actually stayed bound to the system.
    — Paul Sutter, Space.com, 9 June 2026
Definition of bound
Adjective
  • Mogrovejo is revered for having traveled long distances to be with his flock and for having defended the rights of Indigenous and enslaved peoples.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 13 Nov. 2026
  • Cotton made the region rich, enslaved people did the work, and a century after emancipation, the Black Belt became a birthplace of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
    — Shayla Martin, Travel + Leisure, 6 Nov. 2026
Definition of enslaved

Browse Nearby Words

ensnare
ensnared
ensnares
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Ensnared.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ensnared. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

Copy Citation
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of boilerplate

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

31 Useful Rhetorical Devices

More Commonly Misspelled Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

'Affect' vs. 'Effect'
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 5

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

The Longest Long Words List

The Words of the Week - Nov. 13

Even More Bird Names that Sound Like Insults (and Sometimes Are)
See More

Popular

See More

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 5

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
speech-bubble-untangle
Simplify The Convoluted Expression Quiz A quiz that’s as “uncomplicated as a round de...
See All