snarled up; snarling up; snarls up
chiefly British
: to stop (something or someone) from moving or making progress
Traffic was snarled up because of the parade.
chiefly British
: a situation in which one can no longer move or make progress
a traffic snarl-up
Examples of snarl up in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Julian Bell, The New York Review of Books, 25 Apr. 2026
Starting late Friday, airports in Berlin, Brussels and London were hit by disruptions to electronic systems that snarled up check-in and sent airline staffers trying options like handwriting boarding passes or using backup laptops.
—Boston Herald Wire Services, Boston Herald, 21 Sep. 2025
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Verb
Two boys tussling over a bladder in a three-foot-high canvas painted by Joseph Wright of Derby in the late 1760s snarl up in a whirlpool of pain, each twisting the other’s right ear.
—Julian Bell, The New York Review of Books, 25 Apr. 2026
Starting late Friday, airports in Berlin, Brussels and London were hit by disruptions to electronic systems that snarled up check-in and sent airline staffers trying options like handwriting boarding passes or using backup laptops.
—Boston Herald Wire Services, Boston Herald, 21 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Snarl up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/snarl%20up. Accessed 1 May. 2026.
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