Word Finder - complexity

definition

The state of being complex; intricacy; entanglement.

definition

That which is and renders complex; intricacy; complication.

Nor was their complexity a stumbling-block.

Local governing authorities now discharge economic functions of enormous importance and complexity, involving sums of money larger than sufficed to run important states a generation ago.

So also any exhaustive survey of the temperature and salinity of the sea at a great number of points on and below the surface reveals a complexity of conditions that may defy mathematical analysis and could not easily be predicted.

The whole system was full of looseness, complexity and makeshifts.

In a general way this greater complexity may be said to consist (I) in the restriction of regular absorption of water to those parts of the plant-body embedded in the soil, (2) in the evaporation of water from the parts exposed to the air (transpiration).

The tides of the Atlantic Ocean are of great complexity.

The intromittent organs of the male are remarkable for their complexity and elaboration.

Those Fungi which are saprophytic can only live when supplied with organic compounds of some complexity, which they derive from decomposing animal or vegetable matter.

Structural complexity is brought about by the superposition of new variations on preceding ones.

The leaf (phyllome) is an appendicular member only borne by a stem, but differing from it more or less obviously in form and development, though co-ordinate with it in complexity of structure.

Palaeontological evidence conclusively proves that the surface of the earth has been successively occupied by vegetative forms of increasing complexity, rising from the simplest algae to the most highly organized flowering plant.

Such " correlated variations " may attain to great size and complexity without being of use.

It is in this department, from its abstruseness and complexity, that we should expect the advance of anatomy and physiology - normal and morbid - to be most delayed.

There were also extra charges under contingent regulations of great complexity, which commonly added 50 per cent.

The problem is a very difficult one and cannot be regarded as definitely settled, but it is difficult to understand why all this additional complexity in the division of the nucleus should be necessary if the final result is only a quantitative separation of the chromatin.

In the earliest times for which we have abundant material the economic life of England had already reached in certain directions a high degree of complexity.

First (and perhaps earliest in time), the chambers are grouped round a central court, being engaged one with the other in a labyrinthine complexity, and the greater oblongs are entered from a long side and divided longitudinally by pillars.

The reference seems to be not so much to the variety and complexity of phenomena as to the impossibility of construing them rationally or in such a way that man may foresee and provide for his future.

With Sydney Young and others he investigated the critical state and properties of liquids and the relationship between their vapour pressures and temperature, and with John Shields he applied measurements of the surface tension of liquids to the determination of their molecular complexity.

As an example of the complexity of this system we may note the five oxides of nitrogen, which were symbolized as the first three representing the gaseous oxides, and the last two the liquid oxides.

Most of the simple ring systems which contain two adjacent carbon atoms may suffer fusion with any other ring (also containing two adjacent carbon atoms) with the production of nuclei of greater complexity.

Napoleon's solution grew, as time went on and circumstances changed, in scope and complexity.

It affects many or nearly all the structures of the body, but leaves some, it may be only one, at a high level of elaboration and complexity.

Arcana were often shown to be such by their physical properties, not only by such as heat, cold, &c., but by fortuitous resemblances to certain parts of the body; thus arose the famous doctrine of "signatures," or signs indicating the virtues and uses of natural objects, which was afterwards developed into great complexity.

Thus the reciprocity of the various organs, maintained throughout the divisions of physiological labour, is not merely a mechanical stability; it is also a mutual equilibration in functions incessantly at work on chemical levels, and on those levels of still higher complexity which seem to rise as far beyond chemistry as chemistry beyond physics.

The early history of the parishes of London is one of great difficulty and complexity.

The Zulu possess an elaborate system of laws regulating the inheritance of personal property (which consists chiefly of cattle), the complexity arising from the practice of polygamy and the exchange of cattle made upon marriage.

The process can be almost indefinitely repeated and canes formed of extreme complexity.

Almost all the institutions of modern states go back to the curia regis, branching off from it at different dates as the growing complexity of business forced differentiation of function and personnel.

Therefore science will begin with those attributes of objects which are most general, and pass on gradually to other attributes that are combined in greater complexity.

With this may be compared a passage in the Ursprung der Sprache, where there is a curious adumbration of Spencer's idea that intelligence, as distinguished from instinct, arises from a growing complexity of action, or, to use Herder's words, from the substitution of a more for a less contracted sphere.

It is only by a gradual process that social science in its whole complexity can be evolved.

The surface arrangements of a modern deep colliery are of considerable extent and complexity, the central feature being the head gear or pit frame carrying the guide pulleys Surface which lead the winding roes from the axis of the it arrange= g P P to the drum.

The complexity of administrative areas, though far less than in England, was simplified, and the census compilation proportionately facilitated, by the passing of the Local Government Act for Scotland, in 1889.

This difference is due in part to the greater scope and complexity of the American census, and in part to the fact that in the United States the field work is done by well-paid enumerators, while in England it is done in most cases by the heads of families, who are not paid.

The native Chinese zodiacal system was of unexampled complexity.

The greatest obstacle to such a search for the fundamental medium is the illimitable complexity of matter, as contrasted with the theoretical simplicity and uniformity of the physical agencies which connect together its different parts.

In the middle empire (VIIth to XIIth Dynasties) the lay element maintains its position in religious cultus despite its complexity.

In degree of complexity of internal structure galls differ considerably.

Chaetomys, distinguished by the shape of its skull and the greater complexity of its teeth, contains C. subspinosus, a native of the hottest parts of Brazil.

Cardium belongs to the order of Lamellibranchia in which the gills present the maximum of complexity, the original vertical filaments of which they are composed being united by interfilamentar and interlamellar junctions.

In addition to the tentacles, the margin of the umbrella bears sense-organs, which may be of several kinds and may attain a high degree of complexity.

The complexity of the glacial period and its subdivision into several glacial epochs, separated by interglacial epochs of considerable length (certainly longer than the postglacial epoch) has a structural consequence in the superposition of successive till sheets, alternating with non-glacial deposits, and also a physiographic consequence in the very different amount of normal postglacial erosion suffered by the different parts of the glacial deposits.

The teeth of the molar series gradually increase in size and complexity from first to last, and are arranged in contiguous series, except that the first lower premolar is separated by an interval from the second.

The complexity of the conditions of life in the 20th century may be well illustrated from the grain trade of the world.

We are able to handle projects both large and small and of varying complexity.

First there is the complexity of the human nervous system.

The complexity of the search form depends entirely on what the programmer needs to accomplish.

If you are feeling really adventurous, discover the surprising harmony and complexity of an avocado, grapefruit and lettuce salad with citrus dressing.

The dentition is peculiar on account of the great size and complexity of the last upper molar, which is composed of about twelve plates, and exceeds in length the three teeth in front.