Synonyms for intricate
- adjective
Most common
All synonyms
Adjective
1. Complex — having a great deal of fine detail or complexity
complex, complicated, convoluted, knotty, labyrinthine, difficult, tortuous, tangled, involved, deep, obscure, fancy, puzzling, entangled, hard, inextricable, perplexed, mazy, labyrinthian, byzantine, abstruse formal, problematic
Other
complicate, worky informal
Definitions
- adj. 1
Having a great deal of fine detail or complexity.
The architecture of this clock is very intricate.
Related words
- Word family
- intricacy intricately intricateness
Choose the right word
The conception of a material object is usually complex, involving form, color, size, and other elements; a clock is a complicated mechanism; the Gordian knot was intricate; the twining serpents of the Laocoon are involved.
J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)
Example sentences
- complex The plants manufacture complex chemical compounds.
- complicated The problem's a little more complicated than that.
- convoluted The plot's so convoluted, I have no idea what's going on.
- knotty Tom's cabin has knotty pine walls.
- complicate Don't complicate the problem by raising new issues.
Popularity over time
| Word | 1850 → 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| intricate | steady | |
| complex | steady | |
| complicated | steady | |
| convoluted | rising | |
| knotty | falling | |
| complicate | rising |
Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.
By length
- 4 letters
- hard1, deep1, mazy
- 5 letters
- fancy2, worky
- 6 letters
- knotty2
- 7 letters
- complex2, obscure2, tangled2
- 8 letters
- involved2, puzzling3, tortuous3, abstruse2
- 9 letters
- difficult3, byzantine3, entangled3, perplexed2
- 10 letters
- complicate3, convoluted4
- 11 letters
- complicated4, problematic4
- 12 letters
- labyrinthine4, inextricable5, labyrinthian
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (fancy2 = 2 syllables).