Also 7 complexe. [ad. L. complex-us surrounding, encompassing, encircling, compass, embrace, connection in discourse, f. ppl. stem of complectĕre: see next.
In Bailey both sb. and adj. are accented comple·x; so the sb. by Thomson in 1738.]
1. A whole comprehending in its compass a number of parts, esp. (in later use) of interconnected parts or involved particulars; a complex or complicated whole.
a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., iv. 89. If our souls were nothing else but a complex of fluid atoms. Ibid., vii. 362. Containing almost nothing else in the whole complex and body of it.
1672. Phil. Trans., VII. 5103. The Complex of the Planets, disposed and order’d … after the Copernican way.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 93. Names being … necessary for gathering our ideas, and holding them together in a complex.
1862. Trench, Mirac., Introd. 97. The whole complex of Christ’s life and doctrine.
1880. Times, 28 Dec., 10/2. To sift out of the complex of [spectroscopic] lines given by each chemical element those which are ‘basic.’
1885. Leudesdorf, Cremona’s Proj. Geom., 241. Let there be given in the plane of the auxiliary conic a figure or complex of any kind composed of points, straight lines, and curves.
† b. In the (whole) complex: considered throughout its extent, as a whole. Obs.
1661. H. D., Disc. Liturgies, 102. Is the Church of Rome Idolatrous?… Is her worship so in the whole complex, yea or not?
1695. Whether Parl. dissolved by Death P’cess of Orange, 6. Government, taken in the whole complex of it, cannot … provide against all Emergencies.
c. 1720. W. Gibson, Farrier’s Dispens., VI. iii. (1734), 164. To take it in the Complex, it makes a pretty warm comfortable composition.
† 2. An interweaving, contexture. Obs.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., II. xxxix. 83. Their Religion is a Complex of Mahometism and Paganism.
