ppl. a. [f. prec. v. + -ED.]
† 1. Folded together. Obs.
1660. Sharrock, Vegetables, 36. A plica or folding made the long way of the leafe, not overthwart as in Sicamores and other complicated leaves of seeds.
1719. Young, Paraphr. Job (1750) 316.
| See, with what Strength his harden’d Loins are bound, | |
| All over Proof, and shut against a Would. | |
| How like a Mountain Cedar moves his Tail! | |
| Nor can his complicated Sinews fail. |
† 2. Tangled. Obs.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., V. xxi. 267. The feares of polling Elvelockes or complicated haires of the head.
1713. Swift, Faggot, Wks. IV. I. 8.
| In vain; the complicated wands | |
| Were much too strong for all their hands. |
3. Consisting of an intimate combination of parts or elements not easy to unravel or separate; involved, intricate, confused.
1656. trans. Hobbes’s Elem. Philos. (1839), 314. If the question be much complicated, there cannot … be constituted a certain rule.
1747. Wesley, Prim. Physic. (1762), p. xiv. Unless in some few complicated cases.
1766. Goldsm., Vic. W., xv. The complicated sensations which are felt from the pain of a recent injury, and the pleasure of approaching vengeance.
1856. Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., I. v. 182. In birds the eye is a more complicated … organ than it is in our own species.
1859. Seeley, Ecce Homo, iii. (ed. 8), 24. A complicated and intellectual civilization.
1884. Gladstone, in Standard, 29 Feb., 2/5. The case of Ireland is rather more complicated.
† 4. Complex, compound: the opposite of simple.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 523. Thick swarming now With complicated monsters.
a. 1711. Ken, Psyche, Poet. Wks. 1721, IV. 219. Among the Saints I’ll concerts raise, To sing thee complicated Praise.
1780. Harris, Philolog. Enq., Wks. (1841), 429. Thus are all fables or stories either simple or complicated.
5. Surgery. Complicated fracture: a fracture with an injury to adjacent viscera, a bloodvessel, etc., which complicates the case; formerly used in a wider sense, including compound and comminuted fracture.
1745. trans. Van Swieten’s Boerhaave, III. 136. If accompanied with a wound, contusion, inflammation, an ulcer or many fragments … is then called a complicated fracture.
1840. R. Liston, Elem. Surg. (ed. 2), 684. Fracture may be complicated, with wound or displacement of a neighbouring joint.
1876. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., II. 417. Fractures are very often complicated with extravasation of blood.
