Make Your Point > Archived Issues > INTRICATE
Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.
pronounce
INTRICATE:
Say it "IN trih kut."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
Remember the machine from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that makes breakfast for you?
It has gears, tracks, wheels, baskets, spindles, a heat source, a conveyor for moving the sausages, a hammer for breaking the eggs, and so on. It is hilariously intricate.
In other words, it's complex, complicated, convoluted, and By_____ne. Could you recall that last synonym?
But why did he have to add salt and pepper by hand? Ridiculous.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
Our word "intricate" has Latin roots that literally mean "in tricks, in quirks, in perplexities, or in hindrances."
Something intricate seems to be all tangled up in complexity. In other words, to be intricate is to be complicated, as if full of tangles.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech:
Adjective: "an intricate dance," "the process was intricate."
Other forms:
The adverb is "intricately."
For a noun, pick between "intricateness" or, my preference, "intricacy" (IN trick uh see). You can use "intricacy" as either an uncountable noun, as in "I love this novel's intricacy," or a countable noun, as in "I love this novel's intricacies."
There's also a rare verb, "intricate," pronounced "IN trih kate," meaning "to make something complicated, to make something entangled." Its exact opposite is the much more familiar "extricate," meaning "to free from complications, to disentangle," as in, "I had to extricate myself from this situation."
It would be cool if "extricate" were also an adjective (pronounced "EX trih kut") so that it could be the precise opposite of the adjective "intricate," but it's not. At least, no one uses it that way. Maybe we should start! "This recipe looks pretty intricate. I prefer extricate recipes. Peanut butter and jelly, anyone?"
how to use it:
"Intricate" is the common, formal word we can pick whenever we need to point out how something has a surprising, impressive, or frustrating number of steps, parts, or pieces.
We talk about intricate designs, patterns, and structures; intricate pieces of art, music, and literature; intricate rules, logic, concepts, ideas, problems, processes, requirements, expectations, etc.
examples:
"I discovered a set of impossibly cheap whiskey glasses on Amazon; they were beautiful, with an intricate twisted shape that reflected light in shards across the ceiling."
— Jenni Gritters, Slate, 11 November 2020
"According to a new study, one [marine sponge] species’ intricate skeletal structure is impressively strong, outperforming comparable configurations humans use for lattice-style bridges."
— Sarah Lewin Frasier, Scientific American, 30 October 2020
has this page helped you understand "intricate"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "intricate" without saying "complex" or "convoluted."
try it out:
Patty Tucker teaches the game of bridge to college kids. She told the New York Times that bridge "is a very intricate, strategic, intellectual game. It's fun, but there are lots of levels to it and I think [younger people] relish that."
With bridge in mind as an example, talk about a game or other activity that you find particularly interesting because of its intricacy. What features make it intricate? Why are those intricacies fun or interesting?
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
Our game for January is "Find the Missing Link."
In each chain of words, find the one that's missing from the middle. This missing link, according to a thesaurus, is a synonym of each word on its left and right. But as you'll see, the words on the left and right are most definitely not synonyms!
For example, if I give you "special → _____ → typical," then you answer, "peculiar," because sometimes "peculiar" means "special, different, odd," but other times it means "typical of this, specific to this, distinctively this."
To see the answer, scroll all the way down. Your answer might be different from mine but just as good. Enjoy!
Try this one today:
shoot → _____ → introduce
review this word:
1. It looks and sounds like the exact opposite of the adjective INTRICATE should be EXTRICATE. Alas, nope. A pretty close opposite of INTRICATE would be
A. NICE.
B. SIMPLE.
C. HONEST.
2. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry faces intricacies both literal and figurative: _____.
A. a broken wand, and a separation from his family
B. a hedge maze, and an enemy disguised as a teacher
C. a grueling test, and a girl who breaks his heart
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
Remember the machine from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that makes breakfast for you?
Our word "intricate" has Latin roots that literally mean "in tricks, in quirks, in perplexities, or in hindrances."
Part of speech:
"Intricate" is the common, formal word we can pick whenever we need to point out how something has a surprising, impressive, or frustrating number of steps, parts, or pieces.
"I discovered a set of impossibly cheap whiskey glasses on Amazon; they were beautiful, with an intricate twisted shape that reflected light in shards across the ceiling."
Explain the meaning of "intricate" without saying "complex" or "convoluted."
Patty Tucker teaches the game of bridge to college kids. She told the New York Times that bridge "is a very intricate, strategic, intellectual game. It's fun, but there are lots of levels to it and I think [younger people] relish that."
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
|