verb
definition
To develop in detail or complexity
definition
(sometimes followed by on or upon, and then the object of the preposition) to expand/enlarge in detail
example
Could you elaborate on the plot for your novel for me?
adjective
definition
Complex, detailed, or sophisticated.
example
After reading a long, elaborate description, I was impressed but no wiser.
definition
Intricate, fancy, flashy, or showy.
example
I stared for hours at the elaborate pattern in the rug.
Examples of elaborate in a Sentence
They wore elaborate costumes.
Sarah prepared an elaborate breakfast in the morning.
Will you elaborate on that?
He signed the paper with a flourish and returned the pen to its elaborate bronze holder.
It was an elaborate ritual.
They were elaborate carvings, which can be identified from some distance away.
A great part of the eastern section of the railway was constructed on Chinese territory, and elaborate preparations were made for bringing Manchuria within the sphere of Russian influence.
She had no idea that such an elaborate system existed for the lower class.
She hesitated, as if wanting to elaborate and then shrugged.
Can they elaborate the financial mechanisms to support their involvement in implementing the protocol?
Can you elaborate on the model?
Then it is amusing to read of the elaborate preparation I underwent to fit me for the great task my friends entrusted to me.
France began to move in this direction in 1865, and has formulated elaborate provisions for their construction and regulation.
The fortifications are among the most elaborate in the kingdom.
More elaborate contrasts have been proposed between the two words, but are of little practical importance.
The Pawnees, however, had an elaborate ritual, in which a human victim was sacrificed to the Morning Star; the blood of the victims was sprinkled on the fields, and the details of the rite are not unlike those of the Khond custom.
The merchant princes and social leaders of the time are painted with elaborate show of luxury in the canvases of Copley.
Just sitting with the wonderfully elaborate box that the handset ships in made me forget my once embarrassing lust for the Motorola phone.
The adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.
An elaborate symmetry is observable in the construction of many of his elegies, and this has tempted critics to divide a number of them into strophes.
He could elaborate a solid strategy.
Pottery, common to Malays and Papuans, the bows and arrows of the latter, and the elaborate canoes of all three races, are unknown to the Australians.
To these must be added his elaborate treatise on Shipbuilding, Theoretical and Practical.
It is impossible to verify this charge, but during the troubled years that ensued, Ali pursued an elaborate policy of intrigue.
Lao tattooing is of a most elaborate kind.
Elaborate regulations are in force for this method of collection to secure the state receiving its full due Total..
An elaborate discussion is found in Hefele, Conciliengeschichte (2nd ed.), i.
This, defect is noticeable, for example, in the elaborate great seals of the Henries of the 15th century, as compared with the finer types of their predecessors.
In certain writers, however, there appears a more elaborate transformation of the doctrine of creation into a system of emanation.
A commission of inquiry, under the emperor's presidency, was now established to elaborate the means for carrying this promise into effect.
At Alexandropol in the same district was an even more elaborate tomb, but its contents were in even greater confusion.
He didn't elaborate further but the boy seemed to understand.
They used elaborate ornamentation to assist in their reproduction.
The oasis is irrigated by an elaborate system of canals cut from the Murghab.
His system is conditioned throughout by its relation to that of Aquinas, of which it is in effect an elaborate criticism.
It was at once seen that this elaborate scheme was intended 3 Seton-Watson, Racial Problems, p. 194.
While the common Semite wore a short skirt, often with tassels and sometimes with an upper tunic, the more important had an elaborate scarf (extending from waist to knee) wound over the long tunic, or a longer and close-fitting variety coloured blue and red and generally adorned with rich embroidery.
Two years afterwards, following the example of Chateaubriand, he supervised an elaborate edition of his own works in forty-one volumes.
One of the most elaborate developments of the system was that of Archibald Pitcairne (1652-1713), a Scottish physician who became professor at Leiden, to be spoken of hereafter.
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.
Of these one or two, as we have evidence, tried their hands at engraving; among their engravings were these "knots," which, being things of use for decorative craftsmen to copy, were inscribed for identification, and perhaps for protection, as coming from the Achademia Leonardi Vinci; a trifling matter altogether, and quite unfit to sustain the elaborate structure of conjecture which has been built on it.
Will you elaborate on the hoaxes?
A more elaborate method of selection is practised by some of the Sea Island cotton planters in the Sea Islands, famous for the quality of their cotton.
His last work was an elaborate treatise on the Diseases of the Mind (1812).
The last-named gives an elaborate history of interpretation from the Septuagint down to Calvin, and appends the Ethiopic text edited by Dillmann.
The terrible effects of fire-damp have led to the adoption of elaborate systems of ventilation, as the most effective safeguard against these explosions is the dilution and removal of the fire-damp as promptly and completely as possible.
Elaborate arrangements had been made for water supply to the troops ashore, as the whereabouts and the capacity of wells were doubtful.
The Max Kohl pumps are based on the same principle, but are constructed with more elaborate detail, leading to a greater efficiency, an exhaust of o 0008 mm.
The more elaborate patterns found on what is known as " figure rolled plate " are produced in a somewhat different manner; the glass used for this purpose is considerably whiter in colour and much softer than ordinary rolled plate, and instead of being rolled out on a table it is produced by rolling between two moving rollers from which the sheet issues.
There are elaborate regulations governing the appointment and conduct of these chaplains.