byzantine

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“
To call the complexity of the tax system byzantine is an insult to the Ottoman Empire.

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Definitions (5)

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  1. Of or pertaining to Byzantium.

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

  1. a native or inhabitant of Byzantium or of the Byzantine Empire
  2. highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious
  3. of or relating to or characteristic of the Byzantine Empire or the ancient city of Byzantium
  4. of or relating to the Eastern Orthodox Church or the rites performed in it

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Examples (26)

  • The show has become a bit too byzantine-we'd be lying if we said we really have any idea what the hell is going on at this point. —  Gawker
  • Whether because of Axl's endless perfectionism in tinkering with the tracks (and the lineup of musicians on them) over the years or the byzantine legal and contractual snarls that may have been involved, the project bears the inevitable odor of a pot roast that has been boiling so long that all the flavor has been cooked out of it. —  Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch
  • COUNCIL leader Donald Anderson today attacked the "byzantine" bureaucratic processes involved in returning trams to Edinburgh's streets that has cost the city millions.
  • To call the complexity of the tax system byzantine is an insult to the Ottoman Empire. —  The Razor
  • These days, Luke is torn about the future; he wants to be a truck driver and a cowboy, and has some kind of byzantine, alternating-days scheme to that effect worked out to his satisfaction in his own little brain. —  Peter Bodo's TennisWorld
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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byzantine:   Byzantine
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

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