intricate
Americanadjective
-
having many interrelated parts or facets; entangled or involved.
an intricate maze.
- Synonyms:
- labyrinthine, tangled, knotty
-
complex; complicated; hard to understand, work, or make.
an intricate machine.
adjective
-
difficult to understand; obscure; complex; puzzling
-
entangled or involved
intricate patterns
Other Word Forms
- intricacy noun
- intricately adverb
- intricateness noun
- unintricate adjective
- unintricately adverb
- unintricateness noun
Etymology
Origin of intricate
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Latin intrīcātus “entangled,” past participle of intrīcāre “to entangle,” from in- in- 2 + trīc(ae) “perplexities” + -āre, infinitive verb suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As the material takes in water, those regions swell differently, forming intricate patterns that only appear when the film is wet.
From Science Daily • Mar. 31, 2026
Someone might be enjoying a video of a dog playing with an unusual toy or a video of a chef making an intricate meal.
From Barron's • Mar. 25, 2026
But locating and seizing the hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium that Iran possesses would require an intricate choreography and could be fraught with risk.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 15, 2026
The exhibition also spotlighted India's diverse range of high-quality hardwoods such as teak, rosewood and ebony, and the country's deeply-rooted traditions of intricate handcrafting by local artisans.
From BBC • Mar. 13, 2026
About 3.8 billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
