Daedalian

//dɪˈdeɪliən// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Ingeniously or cunningly designed; artistic, ingenious, intricate, skillful.

    "1812, Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations volume 1, book 2, chapter 2, page 484, published in London by Cadell and Davies "The commerce and industry of the country, ... cannot be altogether so secure when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper money as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and silver""

  2. 2
    Difficult to comprehend due to complexity or intricacy.
  3. 3
    Deceitful, duplicitous.

Example

More examples

"1812, Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations volume 1, book 2, chapter 2, page 484, published in London by Cadell and Davies "The commerce and industry of the country, ... cannot be altogether so secure when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper money as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and silver""

Etymology

From Daedalus + -ian.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.