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Complication   Listen
noun
Complication  n.  
1.
The act or process of complicating; the state of being complicated; intricate or confused relation of parts; entanglement; complexity. "A complication of diseases." "Through and beyond these dark complications of the present, the New England founders looked to the great necessities of future times."
2.
(Med.) A disease or diseases, or adventitious circumstances or conditions, coexistent with and modifying a primary disease, but not necessarily connected with it.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Complication" Quotes from Famous Books



... singular equanimity was that he always had the full command of all the resources of one of the most fertile minds that ever existed. Accordingly no complication of perils and embarrassments could perplex him. For every difficulty he had a contrivance ready; and, whatever may be thought of the justice and humanity of some of his contrivances, it is certain that they seldom failed to serve the purpose for which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... inquiry becomes greater when we reflect that to the reticences of sexual modesty, in their progression, expansion, and complication, we largely owe, not only the refinement and development of the sexual emotions,—"la pudeur" as Guyau remarked, "a civilise l'amour"—but the subtle and pervading part which the sexual instinct has played in the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... between May and Lord Dymchurch But she was vexed, as well as puzzled, by Lashmar's recent step, which seemed to deprive the comedy of an element on which she had counted. Perhaps not, however; it might be that the real complication was only just beginning. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... to describe his life at Belgrave House to Fay. She was a shrewd little person in her way, and her quaint remarks were very refreshing. He even thought that he would confide in her after a fashion, and hint at a certain difficulty and complication that had come into his life; he was rather desirous of knowing her opinion; but he began in such a roundabout fashion that Fay was quite perplexed. She understood at last that he was talking about two ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... east of the Wind River Mountains, where they halted for a time in excellent pasturage, to give their horses a chance to recruit their strength for a long journey; for it was Captain Bonneville's intention to shape his course to the settlements; having already been detained by the complication of his duties, and by various losses and impediments, far beyond the time specified ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... an utterly unforeseen complication had arisen. My one desire now was to undo everything for which ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... letter. The scene in the Brys' conservatory had been like a part of her dreams; she had not expected to wake to such evidence of its reality. Her first movement was one of annoyance: this unforeseen act of Selden's added another complication to life. It was so unlike him to yield to such an irrational impulse! Did he really mean to ask her to marry him? She had once shown him the impossibility of such a hope, and his subsequent behaviour seemed to prove that he had accepted the situation ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... France, Spain, and Holland. Shelburne was secretary of state for home and colonial affairs; and as the United States were still officially regarded as colonies, the American negotiations belonged to his department. With such a complication of conflicting interests, George III. might well hope that no treaty could ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... constitution and administrative reforms. But, being hampered from the outset by the factious behaviour of Paoli, he, with the consent of the Cabinet, deported him to England in the autumn of 1795. An equally serious complication was the feud between the British army and navy. These disputes, originating at Toulon, grew apace in Corsica. Elliot sided with Hood, and was therefore detested by Dundas, his successor, Sir Charles Stuart, and their coadjutor, Colonel Moore. This brilliant young officer, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... is a new complication of the American case, and I fear, though I don't join in what I find the universal feeling in England, that the Government of Washington will hold out. But even if they give in, this hesitation, and their manifest fear of the mob, is the most complete confirmation of all I have been so long ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... in the arrangements underground. Two rooms only had been carved from the solid rock, and one of these ended in a wall of gray metal that could be only the great base of the gun. But nowhere was a complication of mechanism that might be damaged or destroyed, nor any wiring ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... box, forming a camera obscura. The velocity of this band prepared for photographing the signals would be regulated by clockwork. The experiments that have been made have not given results that are absolutely satisfactory, by reason of the length of the signals received and the mechanical complication of the device. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... while we can call Jefferson the founder of the party which called itself Republican from about 1792 to about 1828, and since then has been known as the Democratic party. This is rather a rough description in view of the real complication of the historical facts, but it is an ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... from thence he addressed to his soldiers one of those energetic and concise proclamations which made them perform so many prodigies, and which was soon circulated in every language by the public journals. This complication of events could not but be fatal to Europe and France, whatever might be its result, but it presented an opportunity favourable to the development of the Emperor's genius. Like his favourite poet Ossian, who loved best to touch his lyre midst the howlings of the tempest, Napoleon required ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... expression. (Compare my latest formulation of the origin of the hysterical symptoms in a treatise published by the Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft, by Hirschfeld and others, 1908). Examples on this point would prove of little value, as nothing but a complete unveiling of the complication in question would carry conviction. I therefore content myself with the mere assertion, and will cite an example, not for conviction but for explication. The hysterical vomiting of a female patient proved, on the one hand, to be the realization of an unconscious ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... man to be friendly when you want to have nothing to do with him, than it is for anybody to take no notice of you when you would be glad to be his friend. I did not, however, mean to let Nina meet Dennison, for I never knew whom she might like or dislike, and it would have been a most horrible complication if she had fallen a victim to Dennison's smile. So I told him that Nina would not be in Oxford for more than two or three days, and that I did not know her plans, which was true enough as far as it went, and must have been enough for him to ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... was dissolved in consequence of a certain family complication, and as I said before, I hope in time to be able ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... creed held me in bondage: the observance of the Seventh-Day Sabbath, and the exigencies of the letter of the law, which entirely hid the worth of its spirit, were imperative on me, and out of the complication I derived little happiness and much distress. This kind of Christianity seems to me now of the nature of those burdens which the Pharisees of old laid on the consciences of their day, and it was only years later than the time I am here ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... that the nurse had sent him on the errand that had brought him to the cottage. A turmoil of conflicting emotions filled Helena's mind, obtruding upon her anxiety, for she had grown to care a great deal for Naida Thornton—this was a complication that Doc Madison must know about—Thornton had left that morning and was already far away—the newspaper men, or some of them at least, were still in the town—and there were so many things else—they all came crowding upon her, as ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... divisions, upon some combination of structural characters peculiar to them. We have seen that Branches are founded upon the general plan of structure, Classes on the mode of executing the plan, Orders upon the greater or less complication of a given mode of execution, and we shall find that form, as determined by structure, characterizes Families. I would call attention to this qualification of my definition; since, of course, when speaking of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... contraries meet and touch.... Admit these as the principles of all decoration, and you will find that, by following and combining them, you may produce varieties as numberless as the sands of the sea, and that a latent equilibrium will reduce nearly every complication ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... hesitated at the name, and Gotthold glanced aside. 'Well,' the Prince continued, 'what has come of it? Taxes, army, cannon - why, it's like a box of lead soldiers! And the people sick at the folly of it, and fired with the injustice! And war, too - I hear of war - war in this teapot! What a complication of absurdity and disgrace! And when the inevitable end arrives - the revolution - who will be to blame in the sight of God, who will be gibbeted in public opinion? I! ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... false accusation: but on the very day of supporting his charge, as the biographer of his family relates, his patron the Duke of Argyle was informed that the judges had been corrupted, and that "certain death would be the result if he appeared."[164] This statement is taken from Lord Lovat's own complication of falsehoods, his incomparably audacious "Manifesto." Notwithstanding that Lovat had appeared with a retinue of a hundred armed gentlemen, "as honorable as himself," with the intention of intimidating ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... it certain definite but contingent obligations in addition to the general obligation of comprehensive and thorough-going national efficiency. It brings with it the obligation of interfering under certain possible circumstances in what may at first appear to be a purely European complication; and this specific obligation would be the result of the general obligation of a democratic nation to make its foreign policy serve the cause of international peace. Hitherto, the American preference and desire for peace has constituted the chief justification for its isolation. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... Birkin. 'But it's a damnably uncomfortable love: like a love for an aged parent who suffers horribly from a complication of diseases, for which there ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... generation to carry on the work begun by the older. Of course, he reassured himself, this had scarcely been a fair trial. The child had been plunged into the business the day after her return, with the added complication of her mother's illness; but, even making all allowances, he had been dismayed by the thorough-going domestic anarchy that had ensued. He was partly aware that what alarmed him most was Lydia's lack of zest in the battle, an unwillingness to recognize its inevitability and face it; a strange, apparently ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... tainted fortune. And I was as isolated as he was. I could not help but think of him constantly, of his long years of labor, his great struggles, his heroic fight, his undaunted courage. Could anything lift him out of his complication to honor and freedom? He was the most talked of man for the Presidency. If he could only win that now and stand as a master man for nationalism, union, progress, peace, popular sovereignty, all the great liberties for which he had battled. He had ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... was his avowed enemy? Even if Gwendoline meant to marry the young fellow Granville, with her father's consent, how could Nevitt himself levy blackmail upon Gilbert Gildersleeve by his knowledge of the two Warings' claim to the property? A complication surely. Was there not some unexpected intricacy here which the cunning schemer himself didn't yet understand, but which might redound, if unravelled, to his ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... promise to marry him when his period of consequent imprisonment was over. I cut the idiots who had presumed to make love to me, ever after; and assured the foreign prince, I should undoubtedly kill him myself, if he hurt a hair of Michael's head! No, dear doctor. My life is clear of all that sort of complication. My trouble is a harder one, involving one's whole life-problem. And that problem is incompetence and inadequacy—not towards the world, I should not care a rap for that; but towards the one to whom I owe most: ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... appeared to be going on well, and if no complication occurred, Herbert's recovery might be regarded as certain. But what would have been the condition of the colonists if his state had been aggravated,—if, for example, the ball had remained in his body, if his arm or his leg had had to ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... charge of a district; each Gaing-ok has an assistant, 'a prop,' called Gaing-dauk; and there are the heads of monasteries. The Thathanabaing is chosen by the heads of the monasteries, and appoints his Gaing-oks and Gaing-dauks. There is no complication about it. Usually any serious dispute is decided by a court of three or four heads of monasteries, presided over by the Gaing-ok. But note this: no monk can be tried by any ecclesiastical court without his consent. Each monastery is self-governing; ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... that the hereditary totem is the earlier, and that the Arunta usage is the result of the special and inseparable superstition about the sacred stones. It may be a relatively recent complication of and addition to the theory of reincarnation. Meanwhile, the belief and usage produce an unique effect. The Arunta and Kaitish, we saw, are so advanced socially that they possess not two, or four, but eight matrimonial classes. The tribe is divided into two sets of four ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... disquieting start with which he had recognized that Somerset, Dare's enemy, whom he had intercepted in placing Dare's portrait into the hands of the chief constable, was a man beloved by his sister Charlotte. This novel circumstance might lead to a curious complication. But ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... draughty, unconsidered table by the door. Paragot looked at it, then at Madame Boin and then at his own private and particular table usurped by Monsieur Papillard and his associates, and swore a stupefied oath of considerable complication. A weird, pug-nosed, pig-eyed, creature with a goatee beard scarce masking a receding chin, sat in the sacred seat against the wall. His hat and cloak were hung on Paragot's peg. He was reading a poem ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... complication that surged round Miss Anderson's waking hours one point emerged, and gave her a perch for congratulation. That was the determination she had shown in refusing to let Frederick Prendergast leave her his money, or any part ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... fellow of the name of Shedden on board; and, besides other passengers, there was an old black woman, who, where she resided, had always been considered as an Obi woman. I saw her afterwards; and you never beheld such a complication of wrinkles as she was, from her forehead to her feet, and her woolly head was as white as snow. They were becalmed as soon as they were clear of the islands; and, as it happened, some Mother Carey's chickens ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... in his company from the chance which first brought us together at the period of the "Study in Scarlet," up to the time of his interference in the matter of the "Naval Treaty"—an interference which had the unquestionable effect of preventing a serious international complication. It was my intention to have stopped there, and to have said nothing of that event which has created a void in my life which the lapse of two years has done little to fill. My hand has been forced, however, by ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... unusual complication of pregnancy, it is often very troublesome and sometimes irritating. Do not take a vaginal douche unless it has been ordered by your physician, and even then make sure that the force of the flow of water is very gentle. The bag of the fountain syringe ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... the narrative is found in chapters xx. and xxvi., with respect to the incident of Abimelech; in the first of these narratives a serious complication is described as arising between Abimelech King of Gerar on the one hand and Abraham and Sarah on the other; in the second Abimelech is represented as interfering, in precisely the same way and with the same results, in the domestic felicity of Isaac and Rebekah. ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... good intentions he asked for an addition to his pay. [Footnote: La Barre a Seignelay, 1682.] He then immediately made alliances with certain merchants of Quebec for carrying on an extensive illicit trade, backed by all the power of his office. Now ensued a strange and miserable complication. Questions of war mingled with questions of personal gain. There was a commercial revolution in the colony. The merchants whom Frontenac excluded from his ring now had their turn. It was they who, jointly with the intendant and the ecclesiastics, had procured the removal ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... To the facility and cultivation of voice, which came from her father's training, she added a fertility of musical inspiration which came from nature. A French critic wrote of her: "Her passages were not only remarkable for extent, rapidity, and complication, but were invariably marked by the most intense feeling and sentiment. Her soul appeared in everything she did." Her extraordinary flexibility enabled her to run with ease over passages of the most difficult character. "In the tones of Malibran," ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... A complication arose. Divine pity made way for a sense of the girl's beauty and helplessness. The bruise upon the soft cheek cried out for tenderness and protection. Gaston strove to detach himself from the personal element. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... animal scale till we come to the higher birds and mammals, we find a very interesting and remarkable change beginning. The general increase of intelligence involves an increasing variety and complication of experiences. The acts which the animal performs in the course of its life become far more numerous, far more various, and far more complex. They are therefore severally repeated with less frequency in the lifetime of each individual. Consequently ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... his supper of beef, which he had cut off an unfortunate ox which that morning had expired of a mysterious complication of diseases, filled with a happy sense that he had not ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... N. complexity; complexness &c adj.; complexus^; complication, implication; intricacy, intrication^; perplexity; network, labyrinth; wilderness, jungle; involution, raveling, entanglement; coil &c (convolution) 248; sleave^, tangled skein, knot, Gordian knot, wheels within wheels; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... said, "we mustn't think of ourselves now, or of the children. We must think of what is best for Lucy. And what is best for Lucy can't be thought out offhand. There's the complication of winding up here, moving, and so forth. What is ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... Petrie," he said, reassuringly; "I think we took it in time. I have thoroughly cauterized the wounds, and granted that no complication sets in, he'll be on his feet again in a ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... Rainier, Adams, Hood, Baker, and others. Fujiyama, the celebrated mountain of Japan, may be cited as a familiar example of the basic mountain form, the single-cone volcanic peak. Vesuvius is a familiar example of simple complication, the double-cone volcano, while Mauna Loa in Hawaii, including Kilauea of the pit of fire, a neighbor volcano which it has almost engulfed in its swollen bulk, well illustrates the volcano built up by outpourings of lava from vents broken through ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... give. If another sting could have been added it was the absurd conviction that Cressy would not appreciate his sacrifice, but was perhaps even at that moment calmly congratulating herself on the felicitousness of the complication in which she ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... from striking at a man—above all, this man—whom so many were assaulting. No. She would leave God to deal with him. Besides, there might be nothing wrong. All might yet be explained, all might yet be set to rights, all—unless, unless Gertrude—Oh, why should there arise this new and terrible complication? Gertrude with her youth and beauty and enthusiasm—why must she be drawn ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... had not bargained for. Thinking only to see that the lady reached her destination in safety, here was a complication of which I had never dreamed. What her singular errand was, or wherein she desired my assistance, I could not even hazard a guess. Yet there she stood and beckoned me to enter, and I moved forward a pace or two so I could see ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... A wild legend recorded by some writers, but not told of him by the Canadian Iroquois, and apparently belonging to their ancient mythology, gives him an apotheosis, and makes him ascend to heaven in a white canoe. It may be proper to dwell for a moment on the singular complication of mistakes which has converted this Indian reformer and statesman into ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... perhaps never loved. Why so? They might have chosen broken English of other sorts—that, for example, which was once thought amusing in farce, as spoken by the Frenchman conceived by the Englishman—a complication of humour fictitious enough, one might think, to please anyone; or else a fragment of negro dialect; or the style of telegrams; or the masterly adaptation of the simple savage's English devised by Mrs Plornish in her intercourse with ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... seemed instinctively to know at the moment, exactly the best thing to be done. The most mature subsequent deliberation invariably proved the wisdom of the course he had adopted. This was said to have been a marked peculiarity in the mind of Napoleon I. However great the complication of affairs, however immense the results at issue, his mind at a single flash discerned the proper measures to be adopted; and without the slightest agitation the decision was pushed ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... the ills of life come seldom singly, yet how much greater is the might that can rise above and conquer a complication of sorrows. There was strength for Kittie in the contemplation of the serene face that was before her—so free from every shadow that had darkened it when animate. There were exhortations to patience in its hallowed expression, and lessons upon the nothingness of our temporary trials, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... good fortune which they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... Cavalry Regiment or in the Central India Horse, or on the Viceroy's Staff, and if they have to take charge of a Mahratta State they are obliged to pass an examination in classical Persian poetry. This is as it ought to be. The intricacies of Oriental intrigue and the manifold complication of tenure and revenue that entangle administrative procedure in the protected principalities, will unravel themselves in presence of men ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... The Tatler—he had gone to lie down in very truth. He had felt a pang of his old pain, the result of the agitation wrought in him by this forcing open of a new period. His old programme, his old ideal even had to be changed. Say what one would, success was a complication and recognition had to be reciprocal. The monastic life, the pious illumination of the missal in the convent cell were things of the gathered past. It didn't engender despair, but at least it required adjustment. Before I left him on that occasion we ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James

... came to the subject with a first-hand knowledge of politics. He knew the "invisible government" of cities, states, and the nation. He knew how the boss worked, how he organized his power. When Mr. Steffens approached the vast confusion and complication of big business, he needed some hypothesis to guide him through that maze of facts. He made a bold and brilliant guess, an hypothesis. To govern a life insurance company, Mr. Steffens argued, was just as much "government" as to run a city. What if political ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... big bluff. I took hold of the lapel of her waist, intending to undo just one button. I let go in fright when I found there was no button—only an awful complication of hooks or some other feminine method for keeping things together—and I grew red and trembled thinking what might have happened had I, by bad luck, made anything come undone. If Miss Cullen had been noticing me, she would have ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... more than a year and a half since I was cured of a complication of diseases through reading "Science and Health with Key ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... poetries there be, as of impudence (for which consult the experience of swindlers); of prose, (for which see Addison); of energy, of sleep, of battle and of peace: for it is an easy-seeming artfulness, the most fascinating manner of doing as of saying, complication simplified, and every thing effected to its bravest advantage. Poetry wants a champion in these days, who will save her from her friends: O, namby-pamby "lovers of the Nine!" your innumerous dull lyrics—ay, and mine—your ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... the whole, then, it's better—I shall be able to talk so much more frankly." She spoke as if, as a rule, circumstances prevented her giving rein to this propensity. "And frankness, of course, is the only way out of this—this extremely tiresome complication. You know, I suppose, that my nephew thinks he's in love with ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... flower-tangled, pretty precariousness of romance as he came on toward her—potential lovers' quarrels, separation, the irate parent, a girl's pride, her foolish, solemn effort to fight him back for fear that she had led him on too far, a man's uneasy timidity, the complication of their circumstances—the memory of them all made little snares for his feet, as he came on toward her. But he came on, growing bolder as he came, deciding what to do as he came. It was a crisis for romance as ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... if they would consent to open their lips, but their silence and Zuleika's belief that they were bound by some fearful oath gave him great uneasiness. Besides, his son had mentioned Luigi Vampa's name, and the thought that the young man was involved in some complication with the Roman bandit sent a chill to his heart. He was convinced that whatever had occurred had been merely the result of the folly and headlong disposition of youth, but this was scarcely a consolation, for he well knew to what length ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... frowned. The worthy bourgeois drew after him another complication of vegetables in the persons of his wife and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her face, and in figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head and tied in around the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were tap-rooted, and her gown was yellow with black ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac

... deferred, for her, to this account of herself. "But still," he said, "if we're not in the presence of a complication." ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... necessary or the probable. Thus a person of a given character should speak or act in a given way, by the rule either of necessity or of probability; just as this event should follow that by necessary or probable sequence. It is therefore evident that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the 'Deus ex Machina'—as in the Medea, or in the Return of the Greeks in the Iliad. The 'Deus ex Machina' should be employed only for ...
— Poetics • Aristotle

... are the chief mediums of humour, but the sense of touch might by education be rendered exquisitely sensitive, and Dickens mentions the case of a girl he met in Switzerland who was blind, deaf, and dumb, but who was constantly laughing. Among infants, also, where very slight complication is required, the sense of humour can be excited by touch. Thus nurses will sing, "Brow brinky, eye winkey, nose noppy, cheek cherry, mouth merry," and greatly increase the little one's appreciation by, at the same time, touching the features named. Contact with other bodies ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... pang of conscience, and seemed suddenly to become conscious of a new coil, tightening about her, in this wretched complication. Unable to see her way, ignorant of her sister's motives, urged on by the idea that Sybil's happiness was involved, she was now charged with want of feeling, and called upon for a direct answer to ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... undertook to realize the third great object of his life, the gaining of social position. To the period of avidity had succeeded, as it frequently does with those formidable handlers of money, the period of vanity. Being now a widower, he aimed at his daughter's marriage with a strength of will and a complication of combinations equal to his former efforts, and that struggle for connection with high life was disguised beneath the cloak of the most systematically adopted politeness of deportment. How had he found the means, in the midst of struggles and hardships, to refine ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... facts about poetry and to determine its essential nature. The facts are indeed somewhat complicated, and the nature of poetry, in certain aspects of it, at least, will remain as always a mystery. Yet in that very complication and touch of mystery there is a fascination which has laid its spell upon countless generations of men, and which has been deepened rather than destroyed by the advance of science and the results of scholarship. The study of folklore and comparative literature has ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... of these two powers results in what Plato calls opinion (doxa). "Opinion is the complication of memory and sensation. For when we meet for the first time with a thing perceptible by a sense, and a sensation is produced by it, and from this sensation a memory, and we subsequently meet again with the same thing perceived by a sense, we combine the memory ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... Soplica has no wife, or fair daughter whose charms I might adore! If I loved her and could not obtain her hand a new complication would arise in the tale; here the heart, there ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... continued Richard, "that is just it. As I said, Frank arranged this little complication with a trifling amount of malice. No doubt he didn't come with her because he wished to test the family loyalty and hospitality; but a postscript to this letter says that his solicitor has instructions to meet his wife at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... of crushed ore, etc.—in fact, they are grants of the surface rights of certain areas at a lower rate of license than that paid upon claim or mineral areas. This variation in the licensed areas was a wholly unnecessary complication of the gold law, the difference in cost being inconsiderable, and the difference in title affording untold possibilities of lawsuits. In some cases companies had taken out originally the more expensive claim-licenses for ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... time to consider the significance of the proceeding, the friends on shore must needs use great care to avoid a dangerous complication. If the Pawnees should learn where they were, the chances were ten to one that they would either ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... is said, that this occurs when other organs are deranged, and a double set of symptoms produced; "when the patient will be said to die of liver complaint, an affection of the lungs, marasmus, dysentery, diarrhoea, or some anomalous complication of all these affections, conveniently classed by the Doctor when he renders his account to the sexton, under the sweeping term, consumption." The medical profession will doubtless appreciate the value of the connexion which Mr. Halsted is anxious to establish between the physician ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... empty of it, with pedantic fidelity to their theories. English pedants may succeed in doing the like. But the result of our older method has had its value so far, at least, say! for the careful aesthetic observer. It is of such diagonal influences, through complication of influence, that expression comes, in life, in our culture, in the very faces of men and boys—of these boys. Nothing could better harmonise present with past than the sight of them just here, as they [206] shout at their ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United States. That England did not at once attempt to seize it, in disregard of Bonaparte's cession, has been a source of surprise to many historians. The obvious reason is that she dreaded the complication of a war in America when she was about to assume so heavy a burden in the impending European conflict. The inhabitants of the Union in 1803 were six millions in number, of great energy and confidence. A large proportion of them were accustomed to the sea and could send ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... atmosphere was limited to the height of about forty-five miles, that being estimated as the limit at which the earth's attraction would be balanced by the expansive force of the particles of air. But in this problem there is an element of complication in the rotation of the atmosphere with the earth on its axis. Near the surface, and for a great distance upward, the air is but a part of the solid globe, or rather an appendage to it, moving with it in all respects like the denser ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... A complication of an unexpected kind arose now. The Misses Redwood were quite sufficiently au fait with the etiquette of a race-course to know that if their brother ran he must win, and that everybody else must wish him to win. In an unguarded moment I joined in the cheer which greeted Tempest ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... put in evidence their principal properties; but it was the researches of Sir W. Crookes in especial which drew attention to them. The celebrated physicist foresaw that the phenomena which were thus produced in rarefied gases were, in spite of their very great complication, more simple than those presented by matter under the conditions in which it ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... convulsions, produced by indigestion, came under my observation. In her belief the woman had 389:30 chronic liver-complaint, and was then suffering from a complication of symptoms connected with this belief. I cured her in a few minutes. One instant she spoke de- 390:1 spairingly of herself. The next minute she said, "My food is all digested, and I should like ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... progression is preponderatingly downward in binocular vision and upward in vision with the single eye. The relation of these changes to phenomena of convergence, and the tendency to upward rotation in the eyeball has already been stated. There is indicated, then, in these figures the complication of the process of relocating the ideal horizon by reference to the sense of general body position with tendencies to reinstate simply the set of eye-muscle strains which accompanied the preceding judgment, and the progressive distortion of the latter by a factor ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmuring, which carries with it, in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... for more than 200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through many centuries, and its influence lasts to this day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult and complication, for a good 1,000 years from first to last, till at length it found itself in possession of Constantinople, and a terror to the whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon the throne of Constantine; it began it as the slave and hireling of the rulers of a great ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... your advice so far," Mr. Brown said quietly. "There is just one little complication, however, which I ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and them, upon the work of the day. Breakfast was short and very early, which it had to be if Eleanor wanted to see the operations of the dairy; and then Mrs. Caxton and she went thither; and then first Eleanor began to have a proper conception of the magnitude and complication of the ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... "is that you befuddle no pompous little village doctor with the complication of this unhappy tale. No, let the story be that Hayden killed himself as the toils closed in on him—the toils of the law that punishes the bribe giver—now and then and occasionally. Mr. Kendrick, you have my deepest sympathy. Is it too much for me to ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... show, of which they would miss no detail; and all had their interest whetted by some possible new complication of the plot when they saw the tall, familiar figure of Jasper Ewold's daughter standing against the skyline. She felt the greedy inquiry of their eyes; she ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... gets ready to take his next step—thereby throwing his whole weight on two or at best three feet—and just when he is off his balance, there is another caving in. I believe it is this what makes horses so nervous when crossing drifts. Later on in the winter there is, of course, the additional complication of successive snowfalls. The layers from this cause are usually clearly discernible by differences ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... and virtue would, on the whole, and in relation to its circumstances, have been improved by the interposition of God in causing the light of truth to shine in the midst of its corruptions. But we are manifestly incompetent to deal with a question of such a nature. Its infinite complication, as well as its stupendous magnitude, places it entirely beyond the reach of the human mind. So manifold and so multiform are the hidden causes upon which its solution depends, that general principles cannot be brought to bear upon it; and its infinite variety and complication of detail ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... ingenious than they: for whereas they erroneously call it Christ, the light of Christ, faith, grace, hope, the spirit, the word that is nigh, &c. you give it the names due thereto, viz. A complexion or complication and combination of all the virtue of the soul, the human nature, the dictates of it, the principles of reason, such as are self-evident, than which there is nothing mankind doth naturally assent to (p. 6-11). Only here, as I have said, you glorify your errors also, with names and titles that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the Hanoverian period, or when satire upon Churchmen was so congenial to the general feeling. There was no feeling against the Establishment, nor was Nonconformity ever less in favour. The contempt was for the persons, manners, and characters of ecclesiastics.'[666] This unpopularity arose from a complication of causes which need not be investigated in this place; it is sufficient to notice the fact, which should be thoroughly borne in mind in estimating the value to be attached to contemporary complaints of clerical misdoings. The evils resulting from pluralities and non-residence would ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... pantaloons wrapped tightly about her ankles and bound over quilted muslin socks with gay brocaded ribbons and a short floating gown of gray silk worked with willow leaves. Her hair was an undisturbed complication of lustrous black, gold bodkins and flowers massed on either side; and her face, without paint or powder, was as smooth as ivory and the color of very pale coffee ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... form of gastric indigestion frequently ends in death. Rupture of the stomach is not an uncommon complication ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... going is not quite so happy as we meant it to be. Kent can't come with us as we had planned, but will have to stay in Louisville for some months, and may not be able to leave at all this winter. There is some complication of our affairs, that makes it best for him to be on hand until the matter is settled. I remember how interested you were in the fact that oil was found on my mother's land and that she expected to realize an independent income from ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... wind and thus lose valuable distance, and also because the rapidity with which the Mellish was being overhauled rendered it unnecessary, had hitherto refrained from using its batteries. The chances of escape under the present conditions were about even, had it not been for the complication introduced by the presence of Katharine and her father ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... complication," Martius continued, after a pause. "The real cause of my stepmother's illness was Virgilia's declaration that she, too, has adopted the Christian faith. Where she heard about it, further than the things I taught her, I do not know. Thou seest, that ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark

... by the Falconer family. Even they who are used to the ennui subsequent to dissipation, even they who have experienced the vicissitudes of coquetry, the mortifications of rivalship, and the despair of disappointed vanity, can scarcely conceive the complication of disagreeable ideas and emotions with which Miss Georgiana Falconer awoke the morning after ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... enchantment. The power of movement is as mysterious as the power of thought. Memory, and dreams that are the indistinct echoes of dead memories are alike inexplicable. Universal harmony springs from infinite complication. The momentum of every step we take in our dwelling contributes in part to the order of the Universe. We are connected by ties of thought, and even of matter and its forces, with the whole boundless Universe and all the past ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... London he met with a complication of sorrows, he could, without any great effort, remain on his guard against all seductions. He did so in reality; and Dallas assures us that, even when "Childe Harold" appeared, he still professed ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... complication involving British Columbia comes the opening of Panama, turning the Pacific Ocean into a parade ground for the world's fleets both merchantmen and war. Commercially Panama simply turns British Columbia into a front door, instead ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... miserable couch; but her eyes did not open, nor was there the slightest sign of motion in the features. Lady Penelope shrieked faintly, hid her eyes, and hurried back from the bed, while Lord Etherington, his looks darkening with a complication of feelings, remained gazing on the poor woman, as if eager to discern whether the spark of life was totally extinct. Her grim old assistant hurried to the bedside, with some spirits ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... book in the afternoon. I really am trying to do the things I feel she thinks would improve my character—But I am one gnawing ache for news—Underneath is the fear that some complication may occur which will prevent her returning to me. I find myself listening to every footstep in the passage in case it might be a telegram, so of course quite a number of messages and things were bound ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... and other organic beings, her own intention. It is true the intention of nature may go here much further, and the means she employs to reach her end may offer in their combination more of art and complication; but all that ought to be placed solely to the account of nature, and can confer no advantage on ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... world had just occurred before their very eyes Professor von Baumgarten had been so far correct in his theory that both his spirit and that of his pupil had been for a time absent from his body. But here a strange and unforeseen complication had occurred. In their return the spirit of Fritz von Hartmann had entered into the body of Alexis von Baumgarten, and that of Alexis von Baumgarten had taken up its abode in the frame of Fritz von Hartmann. Hence the slang and ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the gods?" said Gordon. "Elliot, you don't know what you are talking about. I am not treating you fairly not to tell you the whole story, but I don't see my way clear. You must bear in mind what I say. I did not think of any such complication when you came here. I was a fool not to. I know what young people are, and Clemency is a darling, and you have your good points. The amount of it is, if I don't get stuck by Sam Tucker in a horse trade, Fate sticks me in ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... source materials is a further complication to the student of Fair Play history. However, letters, journals, diaries, probate records, tax lists, pension claims, and court records offer adequate data to the inquiring historian, although the extra-legal character of the settlement seriously reduced ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... great, nor the transition so affecting: their sensations are not delicate; nor are they, like their betters in misfortune, cut off from hope, which is the wretch's last comfort. It is the man of sentiment and sensibility, who, in this situation, is overwhelmed with a complication of misery and ineffable distress: the mortification of his pride, his ambition blasted, his family undone, himself deprived of liberty, reduced from opulence to extreme want, from the elegancies of life to the most squalid and frightful scenes of poverty ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... know," she admitted, "whether it is music or not. But it is something alive." She fell into a muse, "Queer, what a spider-web of tenuous complication human relationships are. I never would have thought, probably, of trying anything of the sort if it hadn't been for a childhood recollection. . . . French incarnation this time," she said lightly to Marsh. "When I was a little girl, a young priest, just a young parish priest, in one ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... attempts to climb on board and join her fleeing owner. It was a rather complicated crisis even for a seaman, accustomed to splitting seconds in his battling with emergencies. An elephant, unusual element in marine considerations, lent the complication. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... difficulty was heaping itself upon difficulty. "I have seldom met a man in whose company I could take more pleasure than in that of Mr. Boncassen; and the young lady seems to be worthy of her father." Mary was silent, feeling the complication of the difficulties. "Do you not like her?" asked ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... end, and was thankful to see that the reply was from Rachel herself. But the penultimate clause introduced a complication. It must have some meaning. It would scarcely be a wholly irrelevant expression of dislike. Langholm, at all events, read a warning in the words—a warning to himself not to call on Mr. Crofts as a friend of the dead man's wife. And this increased ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... simplest kind of temporal rhythm, therefore, where the beats are, say, drum-taps of equal force, the primary element is time. But if there is the added complication of drum-taps of unequal force, the element of comparative stress must be reckoned with. And if, finally, the drum-taps are not in the same key (say, on kettledrums differently tuned), then the further element of comparative pitch must be considered ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum

... extremely complicated. It was as complicated as it well could be, along delicate lines. There was the complication caused by the fact that Edward and Leonora never spoke to each other except when other people were present. Then, as I have said, their demeanours were quite perfect. There was the complication caused by the girl's entire innocence; there was the further complication ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... which could have been ripped open without any attempt on the spring, reminded me of the verses in the Odyssey, where Ulysses, in a yet ruder age, is content to secure his property by casting a curious and involved complication of cordage around the sea-chest in ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Complication" :   ramification, hindrance, complicatedness, complexness, disease, tortuousness, complexity, state of affairs, complicate, development, knottiness



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