01 a. Entangled; involved; perplexed; complicated; difficult to understand, follow, arrange, or adjust; as, intricate machinery, labyrinths, acco…
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1.
Entangled; involved; perplexed; complicated; difficult to understand, follow, arrange, or adjust; as, intricate machinery, labyrinths, accounts, plots, etc.“His style was fit to convey the most intricate business to the understanding with the utmost clearness.” — Addison.“The nature of man is intricate.” — Burke.
Syn.
Intricate, Complex, Complicated.
A thing is complex when it is made up of parts; it is complicated when those parts are so many, or so arranged, as to make it difficult to grasp them; it is intricate when it has numerous windings and confused involutions which it is hard to follow out. What is complex must be resolved into its parts; what is complicated must be drawn out and developed; what is intricate must be unraveled.