What does complicate mean?
To complicate something is to make it more difficult, involved, or confusing than it was before — whether by adding new factors, entangling existing ones, or obscuring what would otherwise be straightforward. A verb in standard use across British and American English, it typically appears in phrases such as "complicate matters" or "complicate things", and it nearly always carries a negative connotation: whatever is being complicated is usually better off simple. The word derives from the Latin "complicare", meaning to fold together, a root it shares with "complex" and "perplex". It is closely related to its own adjective form "complicated" and noun form "complication". In everyday speech and writing, complicate is a precise way to describe interference with clarity — a delayed shipment may complicate a project timeline, or a legal clause may complicate an otherwise simple contract. Its opposite, "simplify", completes a useful pair for discussing how problems are made easier or harder to resolve.
verbTo make something more difficult or involved than it needs to be; to introduce factors that make a situation harder to understand, deal with, or resolve.
- To make a situation, problem, or process more difficult or involved.
- (Less common) To make something intricately formed or intertwined (now largely historical).
"The last-minute rule change only served to complicate an already delicate negotiation."
"Don't complicate matters by bringing up old arguments during the meeting."
"Her arrival further complicated an already tangled web of family obligations."
When you complicate something, you're literally folding it together — the word comes from the Latin for 'to fold', the same root that gives us 'simple', which means 'folded once'.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of complicate
"Complicate" comes from the Latin "complicare", meaning "to fold together", formed from "com-" (together) and "plicare" (to fold). The same Latin root gave English a family of related words, including "complex", "perplex", "duplicate", and "explicate". The word entered English in the early 17th century, initially carrying the literal sense of folding or intertwining before settling into its modern figurative sense of making something more difficult.
Related word forms
How complicate is actually used
Standard register in both formal and informal contexts; almost always carries a mildly negative connotation, implying that added difficulty is unwelcome or unnecessary. Often used with "matters", "things", or "the situation" as its object.
Easily confused with complicate
"Implicate" means to show someone's involvement in something (usually wrongdoing), whereas "complicate" means to make a situation more difficult.
"Complex" is chiefly an adjective meaning intricate or a noun meaning a system of interconnected parts, while "complicate" is a verb describing the act of making something harder or more involved.