intricate
Definitions
-
WordNet 3.6
- adj intricate having many complexly arranged elements; elaborate "intricate lacework"
- ***
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
-
Interesting fact: The first computer, the steam-driven calculating machine, was built in 1823 by Charles Babbage. It failed to work due to poor workmanship in the intricate parts. When rebuilt by the London Museum of Science in 1991, it worked.
-
- a Intricate 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.""The nature of man is intricate ."
- v. t Intricate To entangle; to involve; to make perplexing. "It makes men troublesome, and intricates all wise discourses."
- ***
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
-
- intricate Perplexingly involved or entangled; hard to disentangle or disengage, or to trace out; complicated; obscure: as, an intricate knot; the intricate windings of a labyrinth; intricate accounts; the intricate plot of a tragedy.
- intricate In entomology, having unequal elevations and depressions placed irregularly and close together, but without running into each other: said of a sculptured surface. Synonyms Intricate, Complex, Complicated, Compound. Between complex and complicated there is the same difference as between complexity and complication. (See complication.) That is complex which is made up of many parts, whose relation is perhaps not easily comprehended; if this latter be true, especially if it be true to a marked degree, the thing is said to be complicated; it is also complicated if its parts have become entangled: as, the matter was still further complicated by their failure to protest against the seizure. That is intricate which, like a labyrinth, makes decision with regard to the right path or course to pursue difficult: as, an intricate question. Compound generally implies a mixture or union of parts in some way that makes a whole: as, a compound flower; compound motion; a compound idea; the word does not, like the others, suggest difficulty in comprehension. See implicate.
- intricate To render intricate or involved; make perplexing or obscure.
- ***
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
-
- adj Intricate in′tri-kāt involved: entangled: perplexed
- ***
Quotations
-
“The Gateway to Christianity is not through an intricate labyrinth of dogma, but by a simple belief in the person of Christ.” -
“When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.”
Etymology
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
L. intricatus, p. p. of intricare, to entangle, perplex. Cf. Intrigue Extricate
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
L. intricātus—in, in, tricāre, to make difficulties—tricæ, hinderances.
Usage
In literature:
A district may comprise many hundred villages, thousands of inhabitants, and leagues of intricate and densely peopled country.
"Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier" by James Inglis
Very rarely does the playwright succeed in weaving a web which is at once intricate, consistent, and clear.
"Play-Making" by William Archer
Complicated and intricate movements should not be attempted.
"Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry of the" by War Department
Of course, many emotions may share in the moulding of a nose, and the whole subject is too intricate and vast to be treated briefly.
"Concerning Animals and Other Matters" by E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
On these terms England consented to appear; but after all these intricate delays the Congress, dated to meet in January, 1860, never sat.
"Lady John Russell"
Its construction, which was intricate, resembled the whorls of a sea-shell.
"Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers" by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
The ways of the law in Spain in the seventeenth century are very strange and intricate.
"The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI." by Various
More particularly in relation to intricate mechanical work is their record remarkable and unexpected.
"What is Coming?" by H. G. Wells
From the rear it looks as if they were weaving some intricate fabric that unravels as fast as it is woven.
"Stories of Inventors" by Russell Doubleday
Are they numerous, intricate, burdensome, a yoke which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?
"Sermons for the Times" by Charles Kingsley
***
In poetry:
O various and intricate maze,
Wide waste of square and street;
Where, missing through unnumbered days,
We twain at last may meet!
Wide waste of square and street;
Where, missing through unnumbered days,
We twain at last may meet!
"London in July" by Amy Levy
As we the quested beauties better wit
Of the one grove our own than forests great,
Restraint, by the delighted search of it,
Turns to right scope. For lovely moving intricate
Of the one grove our own than forests great,
Restraint, by the delighted search of it,
Turns to right scope. For lovely moving intricate
"The Cloud's Swan-Song" by Francis Thompson
Then you will touch at the bedside, torn in two,
Gold curls now deftly intricate with gray
As the windowpane extends a fear to you
From one peeled aster drenched with the wind all day.
Gold curls now deftly intricate with gray
As the windowpane extends a fear to you
From one peeled aster drenched with the wind all day.
"Death Of Little Boys" by Allen Tate
We live in an occupied country, misunderstood;
justice will take us millions of intricate moves.
Sirens wil hunt down Berky, you survivors in your beds
listening through the night, so far and good.
justice will take us millions of intricate moves.
Sirens wil hunt down Berky, you survivors in your beds
listening through the night, so far and good.
"Thinking For Berky" by William Stafford
DEMON. Have done with these buffooneries: leave me, go.
And 'mid these intricate rocks whose paths you know,
Assist your master, who will let you see
(If you would witness such a prodigy)
The end of all his woe.
I wish to be alone.
And 'mid these intricate rocks whose paths you know,
Assist your master, who will let you see
(If you would witness such a prodigy)
The end of all his woe.
I wish to be alone.
"The Wonder-Working Magician - Act III" by Denis Florence MacCarthy
But now the eyes that scan them no longer may there aspire
To we some god self-banished--not so, but the intricate
Tangle of marvellous problems, the messengers that wait
On Measureless Force, and veil her, there on her couch of fire.
To we some god self-banished--not so, but the intricate
Tangle of marvellous problems, the messengers that wait
On Measureless Force, and veil her, there on her couch of fire.
"The Glory Of The Heavens" by Emile Verhaeren
In news:
The collection was in the possession of descendants of Mahmoud Kati, a 16th-century scholar who, along with others, jotted intricate notes in the margins of his books.
The belief that no orchestral music is so intricate that it can't be performed without a conductor must lie at the core of Orpheus's collective unconscious.
These intricate motifs bear the mark of cultural or ancestral influences.
Where else can one find such intricate scrutiny.
This week, we're in love with the intricate, sensitive historical novel.
A close-up ofbraces reveals just how intricate they are.
Description Marc Adams demonstrates how to use punches to repair damaged veneer , or to create intricate veneer patterns to highlight your projects.
Description Marc Adams demonstrates how to use punches to repair damaged veneer, or to create intricate veneer patterns to highlight your projects.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured detailed images of the intricate workings of Saturn's F ring.
With intricate paper fashion and sculpture, Pratt Institute students excel.
Five Axis is known for intricate body kits and that's exactly what's included in the Lexus Project LS F Sport.
Safety experts are bracing for the two foggiest months of the year in California's San Joaquin Valley and hoping an intricate warning system continues to keep drivers safe.
An intricate control system manages every aspect of this 25,000 square foot Hawaiian estate.
Behind Fashion's Burst of Intricate Patterns Is a New Kind of Printing.
Nature uses folding to manufacture some of its most intricate creations, from flowers and wings to protein and DNA.
***
In science:
However, it should be point out that the interaction between the two conditions is rather intricate.
Generalized Majority-Minority Operations are Tractable
As a consequence, the analysis of ST (x) − x under P∗ is more intricate than in the setting of standard random walk.
Tail asymptotics for the maximum of perturbed random walk
In complete generality, the effect of varying constants on BBN predictions is difficult to model because of the intricate structure of QCD and its role in low energy nuclear reactions (see Refs. [40, 41]).
Coupled Variations of Fundamental Couplings and Primordial Nucleosynthesis
The computations become more intricate, for a gain of a factor at most 2.
A Cylcotomic Investigation of the Fermat - Catalan Equation
From this intricate situation, a quite large number of interesting results emerged in the algebraic setting.
Automorphisms and autoequivalences of generic analytic K3 surfaces
***