Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

complexifier

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Remove ads

English

Etymology

From complexify +‎ -er.

Noun

complexifier (plural complexifiers)

  1. Someone or something that introduces complexity (into an issue or situation)
    • 1992 September, Philip E. Tetlock, “Good Judgment in International Politics: Three Psychological Perspectives”, in Political Psychology, volume 13, number 3, page 527:
      Whereas the complexifiers emphasize tolerance of ambiguity, contradiction, and change as critical ingredients for good judgment, the fundamentalists take a starkly different approach.
    • 2000, Joseph William Singer, Entitlement: The Paradoxes of Property, Yale University Press, page 213:
      The complexifiers seek to acknowledge and express the contradiction and to articulate reasons for resolving it one way or the other without reference to a single overarching theory or formula.
    • 2009, Uldis Roze, The North American Porcupine, Cornell University Press, page 14:
      Again and again, the porcupine has been a teacher, a storyteller of the woods, a complexifier and adorner of the world.
    • 2011, Scott Berkun, Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds, BookBaby, pt. 26:
      Complexifiers are averse to reduction. Instinctively they turn basic assignments into quagmires and reject simple ideas until they’re buried in layers of abstraction.
    • 2012, Michael Dalton Johnson, Rules of the Hunt, McGraw Hill, page 24:
      The Complexifier is well-meaning but annoying. The first words out of the Complexifier’s mouth are, “Yes but . . .”

Usage notes

The word can have positive and negative connotations, depending on the context and the speaker’s viewpoint. A complexifier may introduce much-needed complexity into an issue that would otherwise suffer from unwarranted oversimplification. Or a complexifier may make an essentially simple situation unnecessarily complex.

Further reading

Remove ads

French

Etymology

From complexe +‎ -ifier.

Pronunciation

Verb

complexifier

  1. (transitive) to complexify, complicate
    Antonym: simplifier
    Near-synonym: compliquer

Conjugation

Conjugation of complexifier (see also Appendix:French verbs)
More information infinitive, simple ...

Derived terms

Further reading

Remove ads

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads
Remove ads