Complicate
adj, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 To make complex; to modify so as to make something intricate or difficult. transitive
"Let us, however, put aside for the moment the mendacities and forgeries which complicate the question of Lucifer, and let us approach Palladism from an altogether different side."
- 2 make more complex, intricate, or richer wordnet
- 3 To involve in a convoluted matter. transitive
"Don't complicate yourself in issues that are beyond the scope of your understanding."
- 4 make more complicated wordnet
- 5 To coexist with (another disease) creating a complication. transitive
"Masked or larvate malaria, like pernicious malaria, needs complete overhauling. Nearly every disease in the category has been confounded with malaria and classed as larvate. This heterogeneous group has been expanded to embrace diseases unrelated to malaria, diseases complicating malaria, and symptoms and sequelæ of malaria."
- 1 Intertwined. obsolete
- 2 Complex, complicated. archaic, poetic
"How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, / How complicate, how wonderful, is Man!"
Example
More examples"That'll complicate matters more."
Etymology
First attested in the early 17ᵗʰ century; borrowed from Latin complicātus, perfect passive participle of complicō (“to fold together”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from con- (“together”) + plicō (“to fold, weave, knit”); see plaid, and compare complex. See also Middle English complicate (“involved”).
Related phrases
More for "complicate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.