Complicate, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Complicated; p. pr. & vb. n. Complicating.] — Webster enters it under “complicate”
To fold or twist together; to combine intricately; to make complex; to combine or associate so as to make intricate or difficult. Nor can his complicated sinews fail. Young. Avarice and luxury very often become one complicated principle of action. Addison. When the disease is complicated with other diseases. Arbuthnot.
1 other Webster entry under this spelling
Complicate, a.
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! Young.
2. (Bot.)
Folded together, or upon itself, with the fold running lengthwise.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for complicated; he lists it under complex, obscure.
Where he writes about it:
In a complex object the arrangement and relation of parts may be perfectly clear; in a complicated mechanism the parts are so numerous, or so combined, that the mind can not readily grasp their mutual relations; in an intricate arrangement the parts are so intertwined that it is difficult to follow their windings; things are involved which are rolled together so as not to be easily separated, either in thought or in fact; things which are tangled or entangled mutually hold and draw upon each other. — from complex
The conception of a material object is usually complex, involving form, color, size, and other elements; a clock is a complicated mechanism; the Gordian knot was intricate; the twining serpents of the Laocoon are involved. — from complex
We speak of an abstruse statement, a complex conception, a confused heap, a heterogeneous mass, a tangled skein, an intricate problem; of composite architecture, an involved sentence; of the complicated or intricate accounts of a great business, the entangled accounts of an incompetent or dishonest bookkeeper. — from complex
That which is complicated is likely to be obscure, but that may be obscure which is not at all complicated and scarcely complex, as a muddy pool. — from obscure