intricate

intricate is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 2 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 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. 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.
  2. 2.To entangle; to involve; to make perplexing. [Obs.] It makes men troublesome, and intricates all wise discourses. Jer. Taylor.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Synonyms

Synonyms (Webster's 1913)

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Related questions

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is intricate.

Sources