Ravelment

Word of the Day for Monday, June 11, 2012

ravelment \RAV-uhl-muhnt\, noun:

Entanglement; confusion.

Hampered as I was by my well-known connection with the Gillespie poisoning case, I could not personally make a move towards the ravelment of its mystery without subjecting myself to the curiosity of the people among whom my attention of the District Attorney's office and the suspicion of the men whose business I was in a measure attempting to usurp.
-- Anna Katharine Green, One of My Sons

What I could see clearly, though, was the lower course of the burn: this bisected the small valley and appeared to loop around the far side of the dwelling, partly enfolding it before it broadened out and spread thence through arable to a ravelment of stone and incoming sea.
-- Clifford Geddes, Edge of the Glen

Ravelment derives from the word ravel which means "to become tangled". It entered English in the early 1800s. 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com