complication

English
watch with various complications (sense 5)

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French complication, from Latin complicatio, complicationem. Morphologically complicate +‎ -ion

Pronunciation
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

complication (countable and uncountable, plural complications)

  1. The act or process of complicating.
  2. The state of being complicated; intricate or confused relation of parts; complexity.
  3. A person who doesn't fit in with the main scheme of things; an interloper.
  4. (medicine) A disease or diseases, or adventitious circumstances or conditions, coexistent with and modifying a primary disease, but not necessarily connected with it.
    Coordinate terms: sequela, comorbidity
  5. (horology) A feature beyond basic time display in a timepiece.
    • 2013, Stacy Perman, A Grand Complication: The Race to Build the World's Most Legendary Watch, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 35:
      Obsessed, he was after a watch that contained the greatest number of complications in the boldest combinations in the smallest space imaginable.
    • 2023 May 28, Brian Ng, “Is one of these students the next Breguet?”, in FT Weekend, HTSI, page 43:
      In their final year, each student must make their own watch with a complication—from a tourbillon to a chiming mode to having a date display.
  6. (obsolete) A twisting or intertwining.
    • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica:
      the snaky complication in the Caduceus or rod of Hermes.

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Further reading

Anagrams

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin complicātiōnem.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /kɔ̃.pli.ka.sjɔ̃/
  • Audio(file)
  • Rhymes: -sjɔ̃
  • Homophone: complications
  • Hyphenation: com‧pli‧ca‧tion

Noun

complication f (plural complications)

  1. complication
    Antonym: simplification

Further reading

Interlingua

Noun

complication (plural complicationes)

  1. complication
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