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What is the Difference in Meaning Between the Words Complex and Complicated?
Pretend you are teaching English vocabulary to a class of American high school seniors.
What do you say to explain the difference between "complex" and "complicated"? Give examples.
How do you instruct them to identify what is complex, and what is complicated? Give an example.
BQ: Is anything determined to be complex also complicated? Or, is anything determined to be complicated also complex? If one, the other, or both, give examples.
3 Answers
- BOSFLASHLv 78 years agoFavorite Answer
Pretty much interchangeable.
You have complicated matters by asking a question with a complex meaning, that is, a meaning at many levels that twist and turn and weave in and out (twist and shout).
Twisting and shouting at the same time complicates a dance, but is not as complex an organized motion as flying a fighter plane at 30,000 feet.
Source(s): TLM - Anonymous8 years ago
To me complex means lots of parts. Complicated means difficult to do or describe. The complex is necessarily complicated.
A specific chain of ideas or a machine can be complex.
A complicated thing would be difficult to do/replicate.
- NelsonLv 78 years ago
They are both from Latin, "plicare", to fold and are very similar in meaning. Complex is more joined together in a difficult way. Complicated more often refers to abstractions, such as plans or procedures.
