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complex

Pronunciation: /ˈkɒmplɛks/

The English word “complex” has 19 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Made up of multiple parts; composite; not simple.
  2. Not simple, easy, or straightforward; complicated.
  3. Having the form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is (by definition) the imaginary square root of −1.
  4. Whose range is a subset of the complex numbers.
  5. Whose coefficients are complex numbers; defined over the field of complex numbers.
  6. A curve, polygon or other figure that crosses or intersects itself.

noun

  1. A network of interconnected systems.
  2. A collection of buildings with a common purpose, such as a university or military base.
  3. An assemblage of related things; a collection.
  4. An organized cluster of thunderstorms.
  5. A cluster of wildfires burning in the same vicinity.
  6. A group of closely related species, often distinguished only with difficulty by traditional morphological methods.
  7. A group of emotionally charged ideas or mental factors, unconsciously associated by the individual with a particular subject, arising from repressed instincts, fears, or desires and often resulting in mental abnormality.
  8. A fixed mental tendency or obsession.
  9. A structure consisting of a central atom or molecule weakly connected to surrounding atoms or molecules, as for example coordination compounds in inorganic chemistry and protein complexes in biochemistry.
  10. A complex number.
  11. A multimorphemic word, one with several parts, one with affixes.

verb

  1. To form a complex with another substance.
  2. To complicate.

Etymology

From French complexe, from Latin complexus, past participle of complector (“to entwine, encircle, compass, infold”), from com- (“together”) and plectō (“to weave, braid”). May be analyzed as com- + -plex. See complect. Doublet of complexus.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.