- past tense form of complicate.
- past participle of complicate.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of complicated
First recorded in 1640–50; complicate + -ed 2
Explanation
When things get complicated, they are no longer simple and straightforward. If you are asked a question that would require a long, detailed answer, you might just say, "It's complicated." The word complicated came about in the 1640's to mean "tangled" or "difficult to unravel." This makes sense, considering it came from the Latin verb complicāre, meaning "to fold together." Consider that something with many folds is more complicated than something flat. Novelist Robert Ludlum said, "Life is extremely complicated," but Confucius long ago suggested that "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." Just having those two opposing viewpoints indicates how complicated life can be.
Vocabulary lists containing complicated
Schooled
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"Sorry, Wrong Number," Vocabulary from the play
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Excerpts from "To Kill a Mockingbird"
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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.
Taxpayers foot the bill for both the defense and the prosecution in post-conviction capital cases, as well as the administrative judicial costs associated with years of complicated appeals in state and federal court.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2026
This unexpected behavior suggested that the 5-oxoETE pathway was doing something much more complicated than simply activating the immune system.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 5, 2026
As one British general notes, “It seems as though, these days, being French is a complicated thing.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Data-center construction will, at the very least, become more expensive and complicated so the bottlenecks trade in power and chips has more question marks placed beside it, said the research firm’s report.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 5, 2026
The physics gets complicated, and some of it’s still classified, but the key point is that they figured out a way to ignite a fusion bomb using the X-rays produced by a fission blast.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
