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You can describe something as abstruse if you find it highly complicated and difficult to understand.
Something that is arcane is mysterious and secret, known and understood by only a few people.
A circuitous route, journey, or piece of writing is long and complicated rather than simple and direct.
If something confounds you, it makes you feel surprised and confused, often because it does not meet your predefined expectations.
A conundrum is a problem or puzzle that is difficult or impossible to solve.
Something convoluted, such as a difficult concept or procedure, is complex and takes many twists and turns.
When you decipher a message or piece of writing, you work out what it says, even though it is very difficult to read or understand.
A denouement is the end of a book, play, or series of events when everything is explained and comes to a conclusion.
When you disentangle a knot or a problem, you untie the knot or get yourself out of the problem.
To divulge something is to reveal information that was once private or secret.
If you elucidate something, you make it easier to understand by giving more relevant information.
Someone or something that is enigmatic is mysterious and difficult to understand.
If you evince particular feelings, qualities, or attitudes, you show them, often clearly.
Exegesis is a detailed explanation or interpretation of a piece of writing, especially a religious one.
To explicate an idea or plan is to make it clear by explaining it.
If you fathom something complicated or mysterious, you are able to understand it.
A garbled message or speech is confusing and not understandable, often because it is spoken in a hurry or is communicated with lots of accompanying noise.
If you gloss a difficult word, phrase, or other text, you provide an explanation for it in the form of a note.
Something inscrutable is very hard to figure out, discover, or understand what it is all about.
An intricate design or problem can be both complex and filled with elaborate detail.
If you describe a situation or process as labyrinthine, you mean that it is very complicated, involved, and difficult to understand.
If someone is lucid, they are able to understand things and think clearly; this adjective also describes writing or speech that is crystal clear and easy to understand.
Something that is multifarious is made up of many kinds of different things.
If you describe something as nebulous, you mean that it is unclear, vague, and not clearly defined; a shape that is nebulous has no clear boundaries.
To obfuscate something is to make it deliberately unclear, confusing, and difficult to understand.
Something is opaque if it is either difficult to understand or is not transparent.
The art of pedagogy is the methods used by a teacher to teach a subject.
Something that is pellucid is either extremely clear because it is transparent to the eye or it is very easy for the mind to understand.
Recondite areas of knowledge are those that are very difficult to understand and/or are not known by many people.
Something that is sinuous is shaped or moves like a snake, having many smooth twists and turns that can often be highly graceful.
Something that is tortuous, such as a piece of writing, is long and complicated with many twists and turns in direction; a tortuous argument can be deceitful because it twists or turns the truth.
Something that is turbid, such as water, is muddy or cloudy because it has lots of small pieces of matter or dirt in it.
Adj.
byzantine
BIZ-en-teen
Context
Zanzibar found the map to the vast library to be complex, byzantine, and virtually impossible to understand. Even the process by which he could check out books proved too layered, complicated, and byzantine to be followed clearly. After retracing his steps again and again along the byzantine, elaborate shelves of books for hours, he left more confused than ever about the winding ways of that literary world.
Quiz:Try again!
What does it mean when something is byzantine?
It follows a winding path that loops back on itself.
It is too complex to be understood with clarity.
It refers to a time long ago that is hard to relate to today.
If you describe a system or process as byzantine, it means that you are criticizing it because it is excessively complicated and difficult to understand.
ZanBites the Lines There were so many complicated lines on the math page that Zan quickly became frustrated at the byzantine complexity and so he bit them in two.
Examples
Zoning and land-use rules are set by individual communities, often in ways that tilt against new construction, giving local residents veto authority or presenting byzantine requirements for community or historic preservation.
—
The Boston Globe
Only days before his Senate confirmation, a federal judge called the agency’s structure "byzantine" and ordered immigration officials to issue green cards to thousands of legal permanent residents it had left in citizenship limbo, in some cases for years.
—
Los Angeles Times
