Byzantine

How to spell byzantine

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce byzantine

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does byzantine mean?

1. adjectiveExcessively complicated, intricate, or devious, especially in administration or procedure.

Byzantine in a sentence

• The company's byzantine approval process delayed every purchase for weeks.

• Navigating the byzantine tax rules required a specialist accountant.

Where does byzantine come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from Byzantium, the name of the ancient Greek city on the Bosphorus that the Roman emperor Constantine refounded as Constantinople and that is the modern Istanbul. The Latin adjective Byzantinus simply meant 'of Byzantium', and English adopted it in the 1500s and 1600s to describe the eastern Roman Empire ruled from that city, along with its distinctive art, architecture, and church. Because the politics and bureaucracy of that empire were famous for elaborate ceremony, intrigue, and tangled administration, by the nineteenth century the word took on a figurative sense meaning excessively complicated, devious, or rigidly procedural. The unusual spelling preserves the Greek place name, which is why the tricky middle 'z' and the '-ine' ending trip up writers who expect a simpler English form. The same city name also gives us the gold coin called the bezant, a worn-down spelling of the same root.

How the word is built

• Byzant- (from Byzantium, the ancient city)
• -ine (adjective suffix meaning 'relating to')