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perplexing
| Main Entry: |
perplexing
|
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult to understand |
| Synonyms: | baffling, beyond one, complicated, confusing, convoluted, disconcerting, impenetrable, intricate, involved, knotty, mind-bending, mysterious, mystifying, paradoxical, puzzling, taxing, thorny, worrying |
| Main Entry: | abstruse |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult to understand |
| Synonyms: | Greek to me, abstract, clear as dishwater, complex, complicated, deep, enigmatic, esoteric, heavy*, hidden, incomprehensible, intricate, involved, muddy, obscure, perplexing, profound, puzzling, recondite, subtle, unfathomable, vague |
| Antonyms: | clear, concrete, easy, lucid, obvious, plain, simple |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | awkward |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | embarrassing |
| Synonyms: | compromising, delicate, difficult, embarrassed, ill at ease, inconvenient, inopportune, painful, perplexing, sticky*, thorny, ticklish, troublesome, trying, uncomfortable, unpleasant, untimely |
| Antonyms: | clever |
* = informal/non-formal usage
| Main Entry: | baffling |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | puzzling |
| Synonyms: | abstruse, bewildering, beyond one, confusing, difficult to understand, enigmatic, hard to understand, incomprehensible, mystifying, over one's head, perplexing, unclear, unfathomable |
| Antonyms: | clear, comprehensible |
| Main Entry: | complex |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult to understand |
| Synonyms: | Byzantine, Daedalean, Gordian, abstruse, bewildering, circuitous, complicated, confused, convoluted, crabbed, cryptic, discursive, disordered, disturbing, enigmatic, entangled, excursive, hidden, impenetrable, inscrutable, interwoven, intricate, involved, jumbled, knotted, knotty, labyrinthine, mazy, meandering, mingled, mixed, muddled, obscure, paradoxical, perplexing, puzzling, rambling, recondite, round-about, sinuous, snarled, sophisticated, tangled, tortuous, undecipherable, unfathomable, winding |
| Notes: | something complex may be well-organized and logically constructed as well as subtle and intricate, while a thing that is complicated will have something irregular, perverse, asymmetrical in addition to fundamental intricacy; complex is more formal and technical (a problem in mathematics is complex) while something like personal life can be complicated |
| Antonyms: | apparent, clear, direct, discernible, easy, evident, obvious, plain |
| Main Entry: | complicated |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult, complex |
| Synonyms: | Byzantine, Daedalean, Gordian, abstruse, arduous, can of worms, convoluted, difficult, elaborate, entangled, fancy, gasser, hard, hi-tech, interlaced, intricate, involved, knotty, labyrinthine, mega factor, mixed, perplexing, problematic, puzzling, recondite, sophisticated, troublesome, various, wheels within wheels |
| Notes: | something complex may be well-organized and logically constructed as well as subtle and intricate, while a thing that is complicated will have something irregular, perverse, asymmetrical in addition to fundamental intricacy; complex is more formal and technical (a problem in mathematics is complex) while something like personal life can be complicated |
| Antonyms: | easy, facile, simple |
| Main Entry: | confusion |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | disorientation |
| Synonyms: | abashing, abashment, addling, agitation, befuddlement, befuddling, bemusement, bewilderment, blurring, chagrin, cluttering, commotion, confounding, demoralization, disarranging, discomfiting, discomfiture, disorientation, distraction, disturbing, dither, dumbfounding, embarrassing, embarrassment, embroiling, flap, fluster, lather, mixup mystification, obscuring, perplexing, perplexity, perturbation, pother, puzzlement, stew, stirring up, tangling, tumult, turbulence, turmoil, unsettling, upsetting |
| Antonyms: | clarity, order, organization, orientation, sense |
| Main Entry: | convoluted |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | complicated |
| Synonyms: | baffling, complex, confused, elaborate, impenetrable, intricate, involved, labyrinthine, perplexing, puzzling, serpentine, tangled, tortuous |
| Antonyms: | simple, straightforward |
| Main Entry: | cryptic |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | secret; obscure in meaning |
| Synonyms: | Delphian, Delphic, abstruse, ambiguous, apocryphal, arcane, cabalistic, dark, enigmatic, equivocal, esoteric, evasive, hidden, incomprehensible, inexplicable, murky, mysterious, mystic, mystical, mystifying, occult, opaque, oracular, perplexing, puzzling, recondite, secretive, strange, tenebrous, unclear, unfathomable, uninformative, vague, veiled |
| Notes: | cryptic coloration helps conceal an animal; phaneric coloration makes an animal stand out |
| Antonyms: | clear, obvious, plain, seen, straightforward |
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.
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Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2013 Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.
