Complicated

How to spell complicated

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce complicated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does complicated mean?

1. adjectiveMade up of many connected parts and therefore difficult to understand or deal with.
2. verbMade something more difficult or involved than it needed to be.

Complicated in a sentence

• adjective

  The tax form was so complicated that she hired an accountant.

• verb

  The last-minute change to the contract complicated the whole negotiation.

• adjective

  Their travel route home became complicated after the flight was cancelled.

• verb

  Adding extra approvals only complicated a process that used to be simple.

Where does complicated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb complicare, which literally meant 'to fold together', built from com- 'together' and plicare 'to fold'. The image is of something doubled over and tangled, so that the layers can no longer be easily separated; from that physical sense of folding came the figurative idea of matters being intricately entangled. English adopted complicate in the early 1600s, at first meaning to fold or twist together, and the past-participle form complicated soon settled into an adjective for anything involved or hard to untangle. The same plicare root quietly survives in a whole family of English words, including 'reply', 'imply', 'pliable' and 'duplicate', all of which carry the underlying notion of folding. Remembering that buried 'plic' (fold) can help fix the single c in the middle and the -ated ending.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• plic (fold)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ed (past/adjectival ending)