imbroglio
A complicated situation; an entanglement.
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.
Where it comes from
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.
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry imbroglio (CC BY-SA 4.0).