complexifier

From complexify +‎ -er.

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 . . .”

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.

• Kelly Tyko (7 February 2019) “Searches for 'apoplectic' and 'complexifier' are trending after Jeff Bezos fires back”, in USA Today, USA Today.

From complexe +‎ -ifier.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.plɛk.si.fje/

• Audio:

  (file)

complexifier

1. (transitive) to complexify, complicate

   Antonym: simplifier

   Near-synonym: compliquer

• complexification

• “complexifier”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.