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Complicate   Listen
adjective
Complicate  adj.  
1.
Composed of two or more parts united; complex; complicated; involved. "How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man!"
2.
(Bot.) Folded together, or upon itself, with the fold running lengthwise.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Complicate" Quotes from Famous Books



... respect, rhymed elegies, anagrams, epitaphs, acrostics, epicediums, and threnodies; and singularly enough, seemed to reserve for these gloomy tributes their sole attempt at facetiousness. Ingenious quirks and puns, painful and complicate jokes (printed in italics that you may not escape nor mistake them) bestrew these funeral verses. If a man chanced to have a name of any possible twist of signification, such as Green, Stone, Blackman, in doleful puns ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... complicate matters, there had been the bankruptcy of his nephew, the Prince de Guimenee, whose debts had amounted to some three million livres. Characteristically, and for the sake of the family honour, Rohan had taken the whole of this burden upon his own shoulders. Hence his resources were in a crippled ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... all, he can be overtaken in (say) twenty seconds, but he would still have insisted that he can't be overtaken at all. Leave Achilles and the tortoise out of the account altogether, he would have said—they complicate the case unnecessarily. Take any single process of change whatever, take the twenty seconds themselves elapsing. If time be infinitely divisible, and it must be so on intellectualist principles, they simply cannot elapse, their end cannot be reached; for no matter how much of them has already elapsed, ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... magnitude to be found in all the parts of Britain where Belgic names occurred, and still more that they were Germans, is an unsafe inference; safe, perhaps, if the two texts of Caesar stood alone, but unsafe, if we take into consideration the numerous facts, statements, and presumptions which complicate and oppose them. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... was that the main party under Tall Bear might arrive and complicate matters; for the chief had formed the conclusion that the strange horsemen whose appearance allowed him to escape so easily from the cabin were white men, and that the main band of Sioux therefore ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis

... stolen in upon him and wrecked his 'life.' But bitter experience, that all persons above thirty-five were spoil-sports, prevented him. After all, he supposed he would have to go through with College, and she would have to 'come out,' before they could be married; so why complicate things, so long as he could see her? Sisters were teasing and unsympathetic beings, a brother worse, so there was no one to confide in. Ah! And this beastly divorce business! What a misfortune to have a name which other people ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... to be of their making," said Grace firmly. "I'll never set foot on that land Mr. Jallow claims if I can help it. It might complicate legal matters." ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope

... Randolph continued, "that you are losing in both weight and color. That would be no advantage to yourself—and it might complicate Miss Dunton's problem. It's perplexing to an artist when one's subject changes under one's ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... Mary herself would consent to it on any terms. Accordingly, when she found Mary was acceding to the plan, she wanted to retreat from it herself, and hoped that Darnley's going to Scotland, and appearing there as a new competitor in the field, would tend to complicate and embarrass the question in Mary's mind, and help to prevent the Leicester negotiation from going any further. At any rate, Lord Darnley—then a very tall and handsome young man of nineteen—obtained suddenly permission to go to Scotland. ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... reporter, the President had an elaborate letter from me, in which I discussed the whole case, and advised against the very course he has pursued, but I don't want that letter or any other to be drawn out to complicate ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... a singularly obstinate disposition, and in spite of his legal training not particularly inclined to listen to reason. Knowing therefore perfectly well, that he had made up his mind to marry Lucia, provided she did not deliberately prefer somebody else, he felt it useless to complicate his already confused ideas any further, by taking into consideration the expediency of such a connection. There was quite enough to worry him without that; and by some inconceivable stupidity it never entered his head that, while he was really so completely incapable of altering ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... amount of reflected light will be very little, and in consequence the darkest part of the shadows may be looked for. There may, of course, be other sources of direct light on the shadow side that will entirely alter and complicate the effect. Or one may draw in a wide, diffused light, such as is found in the open air on a grey day; in which case there will be little or no shadow, the modelling depending entirely on degrees of ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... cared nothing for Don Felipe. Not that Don Felipe was disagreeable to her, or to any one. He was a Spanish gentleman in every sense of the word, handsome, distinguished, proud, and gallant—but she did not, could not, love him. To complicate matters still further de Tobar was Captain Alvarado's cherished companion and ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... not. It would complicate things very much; and in the confusion the rascals might manage to slip away. Paul had known Chief Billings to undertake a clever piece of business before now; but never succeed in ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... oxidation and elimination. This not only encourages the retention of toxic agents and natural excretory materials by which specific fevers are protracted, but it greatly increases the number of cases of pneumonia that complicate the epidemic influenza, or la grippe, as it has occurred ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... of the princess)—"this death was so greatly to his advantage, that he soon consoled himself with the love of the attractive Bestuchef—this proud and intriguing woman who now, through the weakness of her husband, rules over Russia, and threatens by her plots and intrigues to complicate the history and peace of Europe. She is neither young nor beautiful; she is forty years of age, and you cannot believe that Trenck at four-and-twenty burns with love for her. But she adores him; she loves him with that mad, bacchantic ardor which the Roman empress Julia felt for ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... Venice as an improver of these amatory epistles, by introducing a deeper interest and a more complicate narrative. Partial to the Italian literature, Denina considers this author as having given birth to those novels in the form of letters, with which modern Europe has been inundated; and he refers the curious ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... adjective: as in teachable, moveable, oppressive, diffusive, prohibitory. There are, however, about forty words ending in ate, which, without difference of form, are either verbs or adjectives; as, aggregate, animate, appropriate, articulate, aspirate, associate, complicate, confederate, consummate, deliberate, desolate, effeminate, elate, incarnate, intimate, legitimate, moderate, ordinate, precipitate, prostrate, regenerate, reprobate, separate, sophisticate, subordinate. This class of adjectives seems to be lessening. The ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... interfered with up to the moment of my arrest, when we were miles beyond all Federal pickets. My captors, of course, had never heard of my existence till we met. It is more than probable that the report just referred to did greatly complicate my position when I was actually in confinement; but here my person—not my plans—suffered, and here, the real mischief of that very involuntary ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... Rouletabille, of "L'Epoque." A subaltern came from a guard-house and advanced toward him. Explanation evidently was going to be difficult. The young man saw that if he demanded to see the Tsar, they would think him crazed and that would further complicate matters. He asked for the Grand-Marshal of the Court. They replied that he could get the Marshal's address in Tsarskoie. But the subaltern turned his head. He saw someone advancing. It was the Grand-Marshal himself. ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... with energy, if not with skill. When he abandoned the steering oar, the raft began to whirl, and thus to complicate his labor. I caught a glance of the simple-minded fellow, as the craft turned, and I heard him yell, "Hookie!" He was nonplussed by the change of the raft; but he did not know enough to follow it round upon the outside. I am not sure this freak of the current did not save us from a calamity, ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic

... which is beginning to come down in drops as large as half-crowns. I only wish my half crowns, or even my shillings, were as plentiful! But perhaps they will be, some day before long—who knows? I do hope Ellaline won't take it into her head to appear at the last minute before we get off, and complicate things. Not that I won't be equal to disposing of her if she does! But no! here is Young Nick, very meek and soapy. He has got his petrol. Emily Norton reluctantly puts down a twenty-year-old volume of Blackwood which she has found in the hotel library. We are ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... new relations and new industries, especially of trade, were established, and the new associations of tribe with tribe and of the Indians with Europeans led very often to the development of quite elaborate jargon languages. All of these have a tendency to complicate the study of the Indian ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... point raised by General Moritz must stand, and, of course, it needs the sanction of our respective heads. As Lord Haldane has pointed out, it does complicate matters to some extent. The Balkans concern Austria most; to my way of thinking it is quite within reason to accede this point. [As I write I recall vividly how grave they had all become. They knew what this meant—war in the Balkans.] On all main points," said Kinderlen-Waechter, "we are ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... really felt glad or sorry Henrietta's expert opinion confirmed her own suspicions, Damaris could not tell. It certainly tended to complicate the future; and for that she was sorry. She would have liked to see the road clear before her—anyhow for a time—complications having been over numerous lately. They were worrying. They made her feel unsettled, unnatural. In any case ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... flourishing bee nursery in Bokewood, Mass. This was on a Friday. Rupert was two months old and naturally sensitive—living and sometimes breathing in such a political atmosphere—to the far-reaching effects of such a shattering blow to the constituency. Of all this that was being performed to complicate his education he became suddenly conscious of an innate sense of the roundness of the whole universe. He began to find himself continually oppressed by the protuberant nearness and corresponding magnitude of his mother's face, which grafted itself upon his infant psychology by looming ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... so advantageous in Whist, are absolutely unimportant in Auction, and only complicate the situation. They are not given in the table of leads appended at the end of this chapter, nor is their use permissible, even by the Whist-player of the old school who is thoroughly familiar with their meaning. He must realize ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... forced me to make him my confidant, but he encouraged me to go on, and if possible to finish what I was about that day, as he said he would help me to descend and then would draw up the rope, not wishing to complicate his own difficulties by an escape. I shewed him the model of a contrivance by means of which I could certainly get possession of the sheets which were to be my rope; it was a short stick attached by one end to a long piece of thread. By this stick I intended ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... and the Government had been informed of it, one cannot understand why General Beyers, with his fingers steeped in treason, was let loose upon the community to poison the loyalty of the Dutch along the country-side and to complicate the task of the Government. It seems that he should have been detained that evening, and thereby, having been turned from the path of suicide, other lives would also have been saved. When one considers the amount of harm that he ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... Other minor, local considerations complicate the matter stilt further; I pass them over in silence today, and will not repeat myself any more except on one point,—my religious devotion to our country and our art. To serve them somewhat, according to the moderate degree of my talent, whether it be in working by ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... asked me to determine the centre of gravity of a spherical sector. "The question is easy," I said to him. "Very well; since you find it easy, I will complicate it: instead of supposing the density constant, I will suppose that it varies from the centre to the surface according to a determined function." I got through this calculation very happily; and from this moment ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... more time-wasting and less simple than its recital would imply. For in the dark, unaccustomed legs are liable to miscalculation in the matter of length of stride, even when shell-holes and other inequalities of ground do not complicate the calculations still further. And it is hard to maintain a perfectly straight line when moving forward through choking fog and over ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... As if further to complicate the situation, the door opened to admit the woman herself. She closed it, leaned against the wall, looking from one to the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... much attention to our mutual lack of attention. But the compact was made, and he seems willing to comply with it. The only ones who fail to regard it are the children. I hadn't counted on them. There are times, accordingly, when they somewhat complicate the situation. It didn't take them long to get re-acquainted with their daddy. I could see, from the first, that he intended to be very considerate and kind with them, for I'm beginning to realize that he gets a lot of fun out of ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... to be done! My hopes and fears Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down—on what? A fathomless abyss! A dread eternity! How surely mine! And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man! How passing wonder He who made him such! Who center'd in our make such strange extremes— From different natures, marvellously mix'd: Connexion exquisite! of distant worlds Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain! Midway from ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... stations on the Bar the direction of the flow varies from hour to hour, going quite round the circle in a half-tidal day: the velocities and directions also vary with the depth. These circumstances complicate the computation a little, but the problem is still simple and direct. Everything depends upon the faithfulness ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... her—I, a Kingsland, of Kingsland, whose name and escutcheon are without a blot! What do I know of her antecedents or his? My mother spoke of some mystery in his past life; and there is a look of settled gloom in his face that nothing seems able to remove. Lord Ernest Strathmore, too—he must come to complicate matters. She is the most glorious creature the sun shines on; and if I don't ask her to be my wife, she will be my Lady Strathmore ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... heavier stream flooding in time of storm and lower flow in time of drought by the way its disruption alters the normal behavior of rainwater. The silt that storms wash off of it is not only a major ugly pollutant of flowing water below that point but can complicate flooding and bank-cutting and navigation and other things by settling out into bars and shoals ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... chiefly on the method of agreement, except in such cases as will be mentioned below where a change in policy has the same effect as an experiment. Here, however, one must not forget that in all matters human the incalculable clement of human nature enters to complicate all results, and that emotion and feeling ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... here," replied the girl steadily, "I should only fall in love with him again, and that would complicate matters." ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... spirits of the dead," says Mr. Spencer, "forming, in a primitive tribe, an ideal group the members of which are but little distinguished from one another, will grow more and more distinguished;—and as societies advance, and as traditions, local and general, accumulate and complicate, these once similar human souls, acquiring in the popular mind differences of character and importance, will diverge—until their original community of nature becomes scarcely recognizable." So in antique Europe, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... the moment his discharge came Stratton took the first possible train out of New York. He did not even wire Bloss, his ranch-foreman, that he was coming. As a matter of fact he felt that doing so would only further complicate an already ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... politics or legislation. On one occasion, however, he expressed a serious doubt as to the wisdom of sending to Canada large bodies of troops, which had come back from the Crimea, on the ground that such a proceeding might complicate the relations of the colony with the United States, and at the same time arrest its progress towards self-independence in all matters affecting its ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... going without me—but I hoped he would send for me perhaps at the end of the Congress." He told me Lady Salisbury was there with her husband. He seemed rather sceptical as to the peaceful issue of the negotiations—thought so many unforeseen questions would come up and complicate matters. ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... who had but a few days before been released from prison was destined to complicate matters and bring about startling and unexpected meetings, as the future ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... heart-trials of the woman of the play. In a subconscious way even as he read, Douglass analyzed and understood her power. Hers was a soul of swift and subtle sympathy. A word, a mere inflection, was sufficient to set in motion the most complicate and obscure conceptions in her brain, permitting her to comprehend with equal clarity the Egyptian queen of pleasure and the austere devotee to whom joy is a snare. From time to time she uttered little exclamations of pleasure, and ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... go with his father-in-law, but both the elder men justly thought that his ambiguous claims would but complicate the matter. The landlord was consulted as to the acting magistrates of the time, and gave two or ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... because they found no iconoclasm of this kind in her teaching. They came to scoff and stopped, not indeed to pray, but to listen very attentively to a theme which has so much to be said in its favour that it is a pity to complicate its advocacy by the introduction of an extraneous and most difficult question. So it was, however; with pale, earnest face, and accents more incisive than before, Praxagora said if Bible and religion stood in the way of Woman's Rights, then Bible and religion ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... much waste paper,' interrupted Robson. 'Your lordship had better let me clear away the trash, which will only complicate the matter, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... oil prices in 1999, Yemen worked to maintain tight control over spending and implement additional components of the IMF program. The high population growth rate of 3.4% and internal political dissension complicate the government's task. ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... But Mr Hawthorne is not contented with the natural and very strong impulse of the mechanician; he speaks throughout of his enthusiastic artisan as of some young Raphael intent upon "creating the beautiful." Springs, and wheels, and chains, however fine and complicate, are not "the beautiful." He might as well suppose the diligent anatomist, groping amongst nerves and tissues, to be stimulated to his task by an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... by Johnson, that merely to invent a story is no small effort of the human understanding. How much more difficult is it to construct stories suited to the early years of youth, and, at the same time, conformable to the complicate relations of modern society—fictions, that shall display examples of virtue, without initiating the young reader into the ways of vice—narratives, written in a style level to his capacity, without tedious detail, or vulgar idiom! The author, sensible of these difficulties, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... beastly vulgar imagination. He sank thus, surely, in defiance of insistent vulgarity, half his consciousness of his advantages, flattering himself that mere facility and amiability, a true effective, a positively ideal suppression of reference in any one to anything that might complicate, alone floated above. This would be quite his religion, you might infer—to cause his hands to ignore in whatever contact any opportunity, however convenient, for an unfair pull. Which habit it was that must have produced in him a sort of ripe ...
— The Outcry • Henry James

... voice-deterioration is sure to follow. A physiological basis has reinforced the empirical deductions of the old Italian school. In dealing with children's voices, it is necessary to recognize only two registers, the thick, or chest-register, and the thin, or head-register. Further subdivisions will only complicate the subject without assisting in the practical management of their voices. Tones sung in the thick or chest-register are produced by the full, free vibration of the vocal bands in their entire length, breadth and thickness. The tones of the thin or head-register ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... complicate mysteries, let me tell at once what Ann told me later—that she had found the book lying in the blood-dabbled grass before the step, when it must have fallen from my father's hand, and had replaced it ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... but Beloiseau shook his head: "They don't billong to the firz' building of that house, else they might have been Spanish, like here on the Cabildo and that old Cafe Veau-qui-tete. They would not be cast iron and of that complicate' disign, hah! But they are not even a French cast iron, like those and those"—he waved right and left to the wide balconies of the Pontalba buildings flanking the square with such graceful dignity. "Oh, they make that old house look pretty good, ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... Predestination and Freewill led to many appeals being made to the States-General and to the Estates of Holland to convene a Synod to settle the disputed questions, but neither of these bodies in the midst of the negotiations for the truce was willing to complicate matters by taking a step that could not fail to accentuate existing discords. Six months after the truce was signed Arminius died. The quarrel, however, was only to grow more embittered. Johannes Uyttenbogaert took the leadership of the Arminians, and finally, after ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... complicate these cyphers!' remarked Mr Blandois, glancing up with his own smile again. 'Now is this D. N. F.? It might ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... V., whose presence in Germany might have exercised a restraining influence, was so engrossed in the life and death struggle with France that he had no time to follow the progress of the religious revolt. To complicate the issue still more, Clement VII., who had been friendly to the Emperor for some time after his election, alarmed lest the freedom of the Papal States and of the Holy See might be endangered were the French driven completely from the peninsula, took sides openly against Charles ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... to the imagined glories of other days an idle dream. Graham Wallas remarks that those who have eaten of the tree of knowledge cannot forget—"Mr. Chesterton cries out, like the Cyclops in the play, against those who complicate the life of man, and tells us to eat 'caviare on impulse,' instead of 'grapenuts on principle.' But since we cannot unlearn our knowledge, Mr. Chesterton is only telling us to eat caviare on principle." The binding fact we must face in all our calculations, and so in politics too, is that ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... fell unquestionably into what, if Rothstein and those who think with him are right, must be deemed a grave error. But even if it could be proved that these pieces were by the author of Daniel, the recent questions as to who that writer may have been, still further complicate the at present insoluble problem ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney

... or when any of them are previously affected with torpor, and the external or cutaneous capillaries are affected secondarily; other symptoms are produced, which render the paroxysms of fever still more complicate. Thus if the spleen or pancreas are primarily or secondarily affected, so as to be rendered torpid or quiescent, they are liable to become enlarged, and to remain so even after the extinction of the fever-fit. These in some intermittent ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... way the war may complicate the architect's personal problem, it should simplify and clarify his attitude toward his art. With no matter what seriousness and sincerity he may have undertaken his personal search for truth and beauty, he will come to question, as never before, both its direction and its results. ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... perhaps we shall be forced to use the gendarmes against the brigands (with whom the country is beset, as in all cases of general disturbance) when we travel, but this is all the difference it will make with us. Tuscany is only restraining itself out of deference to France, and not to complicate her difficulties. War must be, if it ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... element behind the whole British awakening? Will organised labour, an ancient sore on the British body, rise up and complicate these well-laid schemes for economic expansion? As with the question of practicability of the Paris Pact, there is ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... "our worthy father is fond of reading memoirs and delving into the musty archives of the castle. Everything relating to Thibermesnil interests him greatly. But the quotations that he mentions only serve to complicate the mystery. He has read somewhere that two kings of France have known the key to ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... their shelter, and finally slope them back at the angle upon which willows will grow freely. In this work there are many details connected with the forms of these shelter dykes, their arrangements so as to present a series of settling basins, etc., a description of which would only complicate the conception. Through the larger part of the river works of contraction will not be required, but nearly all the banks on the concave side of the beds must be held against the wear of the stream, and much of the opposite banks defended at critical points. The works having in view this conservative ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... truth, and answered the questions put to him promptly and correctly. On the other hand, the confusion of Peter Guerre and Bertrande de Rols was so great as to create strong suspicions of their honesty. New witnesses were called, but they only served to complicate matters; for out of thirty, nine or ten were convinced that the accused was Martin Guerre, seven or eight were as positive that he was Arnold du Tilh, and the rest would give no distinct affirmation either ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... have acted if he had been knocking about the world on his own. Luckily he was a subordinate, not a wage-slave but a follower—which was a restraint. Yes! The other sort of disposition simplified matters in general; it wasn't to be gainsaid. But it was clear that it could also complicate them—as in this most important and, in Ricardo's view, already sufficiently delicate case. And the worst of it was that one could not tell exactly in what precise manner it ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... up the adjacent door-steps, and proffered her his fragrant freight. Eve deliberated for a moment, but the fruit was tempting, the act would be kind. As he stood there, he wore a certain humility, and yet a certain assurance,—the lover's complicate timidity, that seems to say he will defend her against all the world, for there is nothing in the world he fears except herself. Eve bent and broke a little spray ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... a great effort, rose and walked out. He would have liked to say good night to Big James; he did not deny that he ought to have done so; but he dared not complicate his exit. On the pavement outside, in the warm damp night, a few loitering listeners stood doggedly before an open window, hearkening, their hands deep in their pockets, motionless. And Edwin could hear Mr ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... would—give!" and then to complicate matters Sandy rolled over in a huddled heap and fainted dead away! Bob, bereft and frightened, hovered over him, emitting yelps and howls that ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... takes its readers on a sea voyage around the world; gives them a trip on a treasure ship; an exciting experience in a terrific gale; and finally a shipwreck, with a mutineering crew determined to take the treasure to complicate matters. ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... family success. This makes the problem of the family and the workers one of great difficulty and one to be given the most serious attention on the part of those who are themselves above the economic conditions which operate to complicate that problem ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... Americans reparation, immediately and spontaneously, for the unauthorised attack upon the Chesapeake, but the American government taking advantage of the state of affairs in Europe, were endeavoring to complicate the difficulty, to the injury of that power which alone stood between it and an inevitable doom to the worst of tyranny. And in conclusion, he begged the representatives of the people to instruct their constituents, by the influence of their education and knowledge; to point out to them a ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... units, and highly technical and professional positions in exact proportion to their percentage of the population. Such use, Paul claimed, would expend travel funds already drastically curtailed and further complicate a serious housing situation. He admitted that the deep-seated prejudice of some Army members in all grades would (p. 214) have a direct bearing on the progress of the Army's new ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... Law system will demand an increased expenditure of Imperial funds. The growing severity of Irish taxation under recent Radical budgets forbids the possibility of addition to the ratepayer's burdens. The anomalous distribution of the grants in aid of Irish local taxation has done much to complicate the Poor Law question. The Royal Commission reported that "no account whatever is taken of the burden of pauperism, the magnitude of the local rates, or the circumstances of the ratepayers and their ability to pay rates in the different ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... could be pure forgery, or the police could have learned about it through the treachery of the servant she sent to the Embassy with it. It would be worthwhile to know. He headed toward the home of her father. If she were loyal to him—why it would complicate things considerably. But he felt ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... injected with coloured fluids; essential oil; wax; honey; nectary, its complicate apparatus; exposes the honey to the air like the lacrymal gland; honey is nutritious; the male and female parts of flowers copulate and die like moths and butterflies, and are fed like them with honey; anthers supposed to become insects; depredation of the honey and wax injurious to plants; ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... difficulty of estimate lies in the fact, that courage and cowardice often complicate themselves with other qualifies, and so show false colors. For instance, the presence or absence of modesty may disguise the genuine character. The unpretending are not always timid, nor always brave. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... complete. At this rate progress was very slow, and as the fierce equatorial sun increased in strength, became always slower still. The situation became alarming. We were quite out of water, and we had no idea where water was to be found. To complicate matters, the thornbrush thickened to ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... to complicate his game with another girl, he loses much more than he gains, for he lowers the whole affair to the level of a flirtation, and destroys any belief the girl may have had in him. He also forces her to do the same thing, ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... Atkins," coaxed the assistant. "Don't complicate your diseases by adding heart trouble. Three times today I've caught you peeping at me through the crack of that door. Within fifteen seconds of the last peep I find you snoring. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Arcis-sur-Aube, who informs me that my aunt, Mother Marie-des-Anges, desires me to be told of a scandalous intrigue now being organized for the purpose of ousting Monsieur de Sallenauve from his post as deputy. The absence of our friend will seriously complicate the matter. We can take no steps without him; and I cannot understand why he should disappear without informing those who take the deepest ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... complicate matters for Dan. He stood irresolutely kicking his bare heels against the curb and then reluctantly agreed to take her as far as Mrs. Purdy's gate, provided nothing more was expected ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... what she intended to do, formed the subject of the keenest interest and anxiety in England at the time; and the problems and mysteries of those years, never unravelled to this day, never with any certainty to be unravelled at all, continued to perplex English statesmen and to complicate the situation in England for nearly nineteen years more. We shall have to follow them therefore in much greater detail than would a priori seem justifiable in a volume ostensibly dealing not with Scottish but with ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... could only work mischief in the world because the priests and teachers let them. All things human lie at last at the door of the priest and teacher. Who differentiate, who qualify and complicate, who make mean unnecessary elaborations, and so divide mankind. If it were not for the weakness and wickedness of the priests, every one would know and understand God. Every one who was modest enough not to set up for particular knowledge. Men disputed whether God is ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... is described as it is, everything has about it an atmosphere of something else. The combined and associated thoughts, though they set off and heighten particular ideas and aspects of the central conception, yet complicate it: a simple thing—'a daisy by the river's brim'—is never left by itself, something else is put with it; something not more connected with it than 'lion-whelp' and the 'peacock yew-tree' are with the 'fresh fish for sale' that Enoch carries past them. Even in the highest ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... ways exactly the opposite. His apparent nature was the result of a long struggle with his real nature. Though he was apparently so simple he had a distorted mind: when he gave way to it he was forced to complicate simple things and to endow his most genuine feelings with a deliberately ironical character. Though he was apparently modest and, if anything, too humble, at heart he was proud, and knew it, and strove desperately ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... which in a moment may alter the conditions of the rocks throughout a wide field. In a word, a great earthquake caused by the formation of an extensive fault is likely to produce any number of slight dislocations, each of which is in turn shock-making, sending its little wave to complicate the great oscillation. Nor does the perturbing effect of these jarring movements cease with the fractures which they set up and the new strains which are in turn developed by the motions which they induce. The alterations of the rocks which are involved ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... else falls to the ground. It would be as unwise in us, as it was in Rousseau himself, to complicate the hypotheses. Men do not act without motives, and Hume could have no motive in entering into any plot against Rousseau, even if the rival philosophers in France might have motives. We know the character of our David Hume perfectly well, and though it was not faultless, its fault certainly lay ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... Sequels.—These are many and make whooping cough a critical disease for very young children. Bronchitis and pneumonia often complicate whooping cough in winter, and diarrhea frequently occurs with it in summer. Convulsions not infrequently follow the coughing fits in infants, and, owing to the amount of blood forced to the head during the attacks, nosebleed and dark spots on the forehead and surface of the eyes ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... not wish to complicate the discussion by examining the differences, in degree or otherwise, in the various cases, or by introducing numerous qualifications; and therefore I do not add the names of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... brains enough not to complicate matters by a personal row with the Goulds," said Bobus, "though I could wish not to have been there, when the keepers would infallibly have done so. Shall I write to George Gould, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... without me. But you must keep your eye out for the cook! You mustn't let any respectable butter-ball leave the room without asking her if she's the one. You'll know how to put it more delicately now. And I won't complicate you with McIlheny any more. ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells

... at Windlow in due course, and brought with him Guthrie to stay. Howard thought, and was ashamed of thinking, that Jack had some scheme on foot; and the arrival of Guthrie was embarrassing to him, as likely to complicate an already ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... fistula-in-ano. Intestinal fistulae are sometimes met with in the abdominal wall after strangulated hernia, operations for appendicitis, tuberculous peritonitis, and other conditions. In the perineum, fistulae frequently complicate stricture ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man! How passing wonder He who made him such! Who centered in our make such strange extremes, From different natures marvelously mixed, Connection exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguished link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... "unself-consciously," begin to let your voice rise or fall—it does not matter which—on the phrase "in every way." This is perhaps the most important part of the formula, and is thus given a gentle emphasis. But at first do not attempt this accentuation; it will only needlessly complicate and, by requiring more conscious attention, may introduce effort. Do not try to think of what you are saying. On the contrary, let the mind wander whither it will; if it rests on the formula all the better, if it strays elsewhere do not recall it. As long as your repetition ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks

... He comes into the room and leaves his key sticking in the door; to complicate matters still further, he leaves another key sticking in the book-case. When I reproach him with these evidences of a failing mind, he smiles and cries. I wish he were here that I might read these lines to him. Then there is Cowen—but I will not fill this letter with incoherent criminations. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... which Linguistic serves to solve, and the errors with which Linguistic strives and has striven, are the same that occupy and complicate Aesthetic. If it be not always easy, it is, on the other hand, always possible, to reduce the philosophic questions of Linguistic to their ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... affections were concerned, and he often came and sat by the girl's desk, evidently wishing to say something, and yet quite as evidently having nothing to say; and thus the situation became embarrassing. Jennie was a practical girl and had no desire to complicate the situation by allowing her employer to fall in love with her, yet it was impossible to go to him and ask that his attentions might be limited strictly to a business basis. The crisis, however, was brought on by Mr. Hardwick himself. One ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... that the bonds among these nomads were very strong, but there was another element in this particular case that might, she thought, complicate matters. The man who had carried Dolly off was engaged to be married to the dark-eyed girl they had talked with, and it was possible that that fact might make trouble for him, and prevent him from receiving the aid of his tribe, as he would surely have done in any ordinary struggle ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart

... mind, the sad product of his illness of body, to fight against his friend, to battle against his one chance of recovery? That would complicate matters. That—Isaacson clearly recognized it—would place him at so grave a disadvantage that it might render his position impossible. What had been the scene last night after he had left the Loulia? How had it affected the sick man? Again he seemed to ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... knowing how thoroughly Ensal's soul was committed to the advancement of the race, he really expected Ensal to develop into the leader of the radicals. But this looming into view of a young woman, a friend of Ensal's, was liable, Earl thought, to complicate matters. ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... amazed me. I knew that African Mahometans never sold their caste or kindred into foreign slavery, unless their crime deserved a penalty severer than death. I reflected a while on the message, because I did not wish to complicate my relations with the leading chiefs of the interior; but, in a few moments, natural sensibility mastered every selfish impulse, and I told the envoy to hasten back on the path of the suffering brother, and assure him ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... without much trouble. Dick Morris insisted upon sailing in and clearing out the two marauders; but Tom was equally strenuous in demanding that they should not be disturbed. He was certain there were other warriors near by, and any such attempt would complicate matters. Accordingly they stole away with their recaptured animals and the one which was not exactly recaptured, and as soon as a convenient spot was selected Hardynge turned back for the boy, encountering him on ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... portly volume might be written. The sexual relations have been affected by many circumstances, some of them entirely conventional and having little or nothing to do with morality as such, while poetry and romance and sentiment have been allowed to complicate, and still render difficult a dispassionate consideration of the whole matter. Macaulay in one of his essays has observed that "the moral principle of a woman is frequently more impaired by a single lapse from virtue than that of a man by twenty years of intrigue." He explains ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... Thereupon the governor of the island delayed promulgating the decree while he communicated with the home government. The free people of color were angered and civil strife followed. The mulattoes took up arms against the whites. To complicate matters, the slaves rose in insurrection in August, 1791. The whites, finding themselves in a perilous situation, decided to accede to the demands of the free people of color, who in turn promised to combine with the whites to suppress the revolt. Meanwhile, in the last days of the Assembly ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... numerous local representatives. There were the bailiffs and seneschals, whose actual powers had quite disappeared, but whose offices served to complicate matters. Then there were the governors of provinces, well-fed gentlemen with fat salaries and little to do. The bulk of local administration fell into the hands of the intendants and their sub-delegates. Each of the thirty-four intendants —the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... Corliss easily. Nevertheless, he realized that Sundown's presence in Usher was quite apt to be followed by a wire from the sheriff of Antelope which would complicate matters, to say the least. He shook hands with the two townsmen and assured them that the hospitality of the Concho was theirs when they chose to honor it. Then he turned to Bud Shoop. "Get the fastest ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... complicate the financial trials of the burdensome mid-nineties, the depletion of the gold reserve demanded immediate attention. During the closing months of President Harrison's administration, in fact, the Secretary of the Treasury had ordered ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... absence, but the little town—then much less energetic than now—had been unable to furnish the work required in so short a time. The heating apparatus and even the doors for the students' rooms were not in place until weeks after winter weather had set in. To complicate matters still more, students began to come at a period much earlier and in numbers far greater than we had expected; and the first result of this was that, in getting ready for the opening, Mr. Cornell and myself ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... in toil and poverty, he had never had the time to love. Poor and a bachelor, until now he did not desire to complicate his simple life. Incapable of devising any means of increasing his little fortune, he carried, every three months, to his notary, Cardot, his quarterly earnings and economies. When the notary had received about three thousand francs ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac

... party, foments in the middle classes the spirit of antagonism against the nobles and the rich, leads them to the assault on the citadels of aristocratic and democratic power. Hence the mad internal struggles that redden Rome with blood and complicate so tragically, especially after the Gracchi, the external polity. The increasing wants of the members of all classes, the debts that are their inevitable consequence, the universal longing, partly unsatisfied for lack of means, for the pleasures ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... District. His chief objection to the measure before the Senate was that it was untimely. "Any thing not essential in itself," said he, "or very material to the welfare of the nation, or a considerable part of the nation, if it is calculated to complicate our difficulties, or inflame party passions or sectional animosities, had better be left, it appears to me, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... resemblance to that of St. Real's hero, we are not particularly concerned. The French Abbe's drift is to exalt the French princess and to give a telling picture of a pair of high-minded lovers who are brought to their death by a complicate intrigue begotten of jealousy, political hatred and religious fanaticism. After the death of Carlos the queen is poisoned and then, one after the other, all the conspirators meet with poetic justice. "Ainsi", the Abbe concludes, "furent expiees ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... Dan went again to the home of Judge Strong. He had persuaded McGowan to let him act in the matter, for he feared that the Irishman's temper would complicate things and make it more difficult to secure Deborah's rights by creating some feeling in the community ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... Laggan nearly to the Caledonian Canal. I publish my observations upon this great central glacier for the first time in the present article, having omitted them in my contributions upon this subject to the scientific periodicals of the day simply because I thought best not to complicate my exposition of the facts concerning the parallel roads by considerations foreign to their origin, convinced as I was, from the manner in which the glacial theory was then received, that they would not be understood, and still less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... gift in the world it was that of eloquence, but he could get no cause to plead; and his aunt dying inopportunely, first his resources failed, and then his health. He had no sooner returned to his home, than, to complicate his difficulties completely, he fell in love with Mademoiselle Natalie de Bellefonds, who had just returned from Paris, where she had been completing her education. To expatiate on the perfections of Mademoiselle ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... declared General Totten, adding in his thoughts, for his further consolation, the assurance that, at half past eleven, so the clock on the wall revealed to his gaze, such an early riser as Morrison must be abed and asleep; therefore, the exception for the sake of politeness did not threaten to complicate affairs! ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... combine to necessitate great thoroughness of preparation and only such a measure of despatch as can be secured without endangering thoroughness. Whether the projected expedition shall include troops, the conditions at the time must dictate. Troops with their transports will much complicate and increase the difficulties of the problem, and they may or may not be needed. The critical results can be accomplished by naval operations only; since nothing can be accomplished if the naval part of the expedition fails to secure ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... was no nonsense about' this redoubtable woman. She hated shams and make-believes with a bitter and ruthless hatred. She was the heiress to at least five thousand a year, and knew it well, but she never encouraged her father to complicate their simple mode of life with the pomps of wealth. They lived in a house with a large garden at Pireford, which is on the summit of the steep ridge between the Five Towns and Oldcastle, and they kept two servants and a coachman, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... "Perhaps we'd better wait till Mrs. March comes down, and let things take the usual course. The Dryfoos ladies will want to call on her as the last-comer, and if I treated myself 'en garcon' now, and paid the first visit, it might complicate matters." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... author here makes a digression, to remove the objection that in war bodily strength is of greater importance than mental superiority. He admits that in the earlier times it may have been so, but maintains that in more recent times, when the art of war had become rather complicate, the superiority of mind has become manifest. Vine corporis an; that is, utrum vi corporis an. See Zumpt, S 554. [10] That is, 'before undertaking anything, reflect well; but when you have reflected, then carry your design into execution without delay.' The past participles consulta and facto ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)

... English gentleman is qualified to hold any post which he has influence enough to secure." This element was accompanied by a fair sprinkling of manufacturers and other business men, for the most part Nonconformists. But no separate Irish party existed to complicate the grouping; indeed, the Irish were much less a corps apart than they had been in O'Connell's time. Labour had not one direct representative, though the importance of the artisan vote had made itself felt; and this was recognized by the choice of Mundella, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... instances seem to make deliberate attempts to complicate the very simple matter of touch. In the final analyses the whole study of touch may be resolved into two means of administering force to the keyboard, i. e., weight and muscular activity. The amount of pressure brought to bear upon the keys depends ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... the new Environment for a share of the correspondences. And in a hundred ways the former traditions, the memories and passions of the past, the fixed associations and habits of the earlier life, now complicate the new relation. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself in correspondence with two environments, each with urgent but yet incompatible claims. It is a dual soul living in a double world, a world whose inhabitants are ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... partialities for any sect, enabled him to manipulate all resources at his disposal for the main object of uniting Catholicism and securing Papal supremacy. He was also fortunate in his family relations, having no occasion to complicate his policy by nepotism. One of the first acts of his reign had been to condemn four of the Caraffeschi—Cardinal Caraffa, the Duke of Palliano, Count Aliffe and Leonardo di Cardine—to death; and this act of justice ended forever the old forms of domestic ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... To complicate the matter here it was Monday, and no steamer to sail until Wednesday, so there were forty-eight hours of frightful ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... supposition could explain this anxiety to obtain an old boot and this indifference to a new one. The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... intrication^; perplexity; network, labyrinth; wilderness, jungle; involution, raveling, entanglement; coil &c (convolution) 248; sleave^, tangled skein, knot, Gordian knot, wheels within wheels; kink, gnarl, knarl^; webwork^. [complexity if a task or action] difficulty &c 704. V. complexify^, complicate. Adj. gnarled, knarled^. complex, complexed; intricate, complicated, perplexed, involved, raveled, entangled, knotted, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... had gone alone ... if there had been no man in the case to complicate matters and compromise the situation—in that first moment of despair Toni hated Leonard Dowson, loathed herself for imagining it would be possible to go away with him; and at the same time realized that whatever happened she would find it almost impossible to explain the man's introduction into ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... and other public utilities by the government tends further to complicate the problems of national debt. It is clear that this system of buying without paying can not go on forever. The growth of wealth and population can not keep step with borrowing, even though all funds were expended ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... going," said the old man to the notary towards the close of the evening. "I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my guardianship account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property after my death. Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my heirs,—I have disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret my nephew are members of the family council appointed for Ursula, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... not the observant tourist, and continued to enlarge and complicate his views of American life to the very bank of the Missouri. Unwittingly, however, for they knew him not nor saw him nor heard him, being occupied with the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... had prevailed upon these envoys, by false promises and advice, to act a part different from what they were sent to perform, Nicias was sent to Sparta to clear up embarrassments, but failed in his object, upon which Athens concluded an alliance with Argos, Elis, and Mantinea, which only tended to complicate existing difficulties. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... heart and soul. It took Jared some minutes to digest the information that had been flung at him so unexpectedly, and then anger and baffled hope swayed him. Joyce married to Jude would make his, Jared's, future no securer than it now was. Indeed it might complicate matters, for Jared had no belief in Jude rising above the dead level of ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... under which international payments are carried out. Nobody can deny that some improvement is possible in this respect, but it may very well be doubted whether, at the present moment, when very serious problems of rebuilding have inevitably to be faced and solved, it is advisable to complicate them by introducing this difficult question which, whenever it is raised, will require the ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... gasped Sue, afraid that any newcomer would only complicate the difficulties of the moment, and that the bold youth would be compelled to use ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... direct from the Divine hand. It moves me tremendously, that flashing and brightening charm of hers—but I see and feel it, I think, as something beyond and outside of her, which comes as a message to me. She's a darling! But I am not going to interfere with her or complicate her life. She must find a fit mate, and I am going to let her feel that she can depend on me for any service I can do for her. I don't mind saying, old man," added Father Payne, in a different tone, "that there isn't a touch of temptation about it all. I yield in imagination to ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... To complicate matters already sufficiently aggravating, Gettysburg, Napoleon C. Blink, and Algy, the Chinese cook, from the Monte Cristo mine, now swung into line from the northwest road, riding on horses and burros. They were leading three small pack animals, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... of a system equally conchological. He found that the social action in every part of the island was regulated and assisted by this process. Oyster-shells were first introduced; muscle-shells speedily followed; and, as commerce became more complicate, they had even been obliged to have recourse to snail-shells. Popanilla retired to rest with admiration of the people who thus converted to the most useful purposes things apparently so useless. There was no saying now what might not be done even ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... domestic servants and the men the unskilled laborers that were needed in the construction camps. They built roads, dug canals, and laid the first railways. Complaint was made that they lowered the standards of wages and of living, that their intemperate, improvident ways tended to complicate the problem of poverty, and that their Catholic religion made them dangerous, but they continued to come until the movement reached its climax, in 1851, when 272,000 passed through the gates of the Atlantic ports. The Irish-American ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... must arrange their work and all their activities to secure the best advantage. These arrangements, agreements, understandings—what are they but laws? To live without law is to live alone. Every family is a miniature State with a complicate system of laws, a supreme authority and subordinate authorities down to the latest babe. And as he who is loudest in demanding liberty for himself is sternest in denying it to others, you may confidently go to the Maison Vaillant, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... many necessary links in the story. Meg admired the tragedy, so Jo piled up the agony to suit her, while Amy objected to the fun, and, with the best intentions in life, Jo quenched the spritly scenes which relieved the somber character of the story. Then, to complicate the ruin, she cut it down one third, and confidingly sent the poor little romance, like a picked robin, out into the big, busy world ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... precautions have been taken with regard to sanitation. She is the child of rich people, but they have been wantonly neglectful, almost cruel in their negligence and ignorance. The mother, a young woman, is nearly certain to take the complaint and, to complicate everything, there is another baby expected before long. Now you understand. If you get into that house you are scarcely likely to go out of it ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade

... said Mabel, "you see now how absurdly mistaken you were. Perhaps hereafter you will allow us to manage our own affairs, and not complicate them with your bungling masculine attempts at superior wisdom." "I am glad to know, brother," said Jane, "that your friend is a gentleman, incapable of the base suspicions you would have attributed to him. You did your best to prevent our knowing him and carrying out your ideas for his improvement: ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... that the tentacles hang down from the margin, and let four tubes radiate from the central cavity to the periphery, and we have the lowest form of Jelly-Fish. Expand the cup of the Hydra to form a gelatinous disk, increase the number of tubes, complicate their ramifications, let eyes be developed along the margin, add some external appendages, and we have the Discophore. Elongate the disk in order to give the body an oval form, diminish the number of main tubes, and let them give off vertical as well as horizontal branches, and we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... moments one realizes that hands, arms, legs, and head have been given one to complicate things. One jams them against everything. And there are times, too, when the unpractised Briton ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... stump obstructions, however, were not so very much in the way, for there were no wagons or carriages there. There was not a horse on the island. The domestic animals were represented by chickens, a lonely cow, a few sheep, and hogs of a breed well calculated to deepen and complicate the mud of ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... independent republic but so far has been unable to reunite either Somaliland or Puntland with the unstable regions in the south. Numerous warlords and factions are still fighting for control of Mogadishu and the other southern regions. Suspicion of Somali links with global terrorism complicate the picture. ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... through which we reach the external facts he reports. The aim of criticism is to determine whether the author has reported the facts correctly. If he has given inexact information, it is indifferent whether he did so intentionally or not; to draw a distinction would complicate matters unnecessarily. There is thus little occasion to make a separate examination of an author's good faith, and we may shorten our labours by including in a single set of questions all the causes which lead ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... open roadstead and the vessel lies off-shore and discharges into lighters. About four days a week the surf is so high the lighters cannot lie alongside the ship or be run up on the beach without being ruined, and to complicate the situation they only have two or three lighters at the port. Labor is scarce, too, and the few cargadores a skipper can hire have a habit of working two days and staying drunk for the remainder of the week on the proceeds of those two ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... that does complicate things, I will give in. The wind in a water-pipe might snore, but it couldn't say 'Oh, Lord!' not very plain. You heard that the first night, afore ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... intelligence into the soul of the man, explains his own view of the situation. In Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau, we have sometimes what Browning really thinks, as in the beginning of the poem, about the matter in hand, and then what he thinks the Prince would think, and then, to complicate the affair still more, the Prince divides himself, and makes a personage called Sagacity argue with him on the whole situation. As to Fifine at the Fair—a poem it would not be fair to class altogether ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... the contrary, that it would complicate the administration, and certainly it would not suit the people as well. You see, while we insist on equality we detest uniformity, and seek to provide free play to the greatest possible variety of tastes ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... but she was not agitated. She seemed to become gloomy, disapproving. 'I could not entertain such an idea at this time of life,' she said after a moment or two. 'It would complicate matters too greatly. I have a very fair income, and require no help of any sort. I have no wish to marry . . . What could have induced you to come on such an errand now? It seems quite extraordinary, if I ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... it, I should find that the highest Catholic Authority was against the attempt, and that I should have spent my time and my thought, in doing what either it would be imprudent to bring before the public at all, or what, did I do so, would only complicate matters further which were already complicated, without my interference, more than enough. And I interpret recent acts of that authority as fulfilling my expectation; I interpret them as tying the hands of a controversialist, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... are none," she returned with the same calm, level voice. "It is true that I have at times tried to do something real and womanly, and not, you know, merely to complicate a—a"—her voice faltered—"theatrical situation—but I couldn't! Something impelled me otherwise. Now you know why I became an actress! But even there I fail! THEY are allowed reasoning power off the stage—I have none at any time! I laugh in the wrong place—I do the unnecessary, extravagant thing. ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... everything. She forgot everything present—the Judge, Sophy, and Mrs. Somers; and came to the table so soon as the bright brass of the little machine caught her eye. The machine alone was a wonder and beauty; it seemed to Faith like an elegant little brass gun mounted on the most complicate and exquisite of gun carriages—with its multiplication of wheels and screws and pins, by which its adjustment might be regulated to a hair; with its beautiful workmanship and high finish, and its most marvellous and admirable purpose and adaptation. Dr. Harrison had never adjusted his ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... care as complicate As golden threads which maidens spin; God crown with bliss Sir Engelbret, He ever was so free ...
— The Verner Raven; The Count of Vendel's Daughter - and other Ballads • Anonymous

... factor which must be taken into account. Judith, knowing little of him, sought to know more, watched him when he was talking, got his views upon many matters that came up haphazard, and found that, while she liked him, she would have been more than glad if he had not come to still further complicate matters for her. For it was open and shut that his interest and enthusiasm would demand a voice. She asked frankly how ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... hurt by the girl? Braybrooke's news had made him feel really angry. Yet he knew he had no right to be angry. He began to wish that he had never gone to Berkeley Square on that autumn afternoon, had never met the two women who were beginning to complicate his life. For a moment he thought of dropping them both. But had not one of them already dropped him? He would certainly not call again in Berkeley Square. If Lady Sellingworth did not ask him to go there he would not attempt ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... Saunders." Mark's voice had a decided note in it. "My disappearance might complicate the international part of the situation. Baron Griffin was a member of the House of Lords, and quite a personage. And I am the only brother of that late personage. He had no children. I can fight better here—as ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach

... summer of leisure to begin a course of reading in Socialism—a subject which had been stretching out its arms to him ever since he had made the acquaintance of Henry Darrell. He had held away from it on purpose, not wishing to complicate his mind with too many problems. But now he had finished with history, and was free to come back to the world ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair



Words linked to "Complicate" :   complication, embrangle, modify, alter, snarl up, complexify, change, develop, simplify, snarl, rarify, refine, sophisticate, elaborate



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