Other forms: complications
A complication is something that makes a matter harder to deal with. One more thing, and not a helpful one.
The plain sense is everyday, so an unexpected complication is a problem arriving on top of the original one. Medicine uses the word precisely, and complications following surgery is a formal category meaning a second condition arising from the first. Watchmaking has a lovely technical sense, since a complication is any function beyond telling the time. The verb is complicate.
1nouncomplicationSomething that makes a situation more difficult.
“The weather was an unwelcome complication.”
2nounsecondaryA secondary condition arising from an illness or operation.
“He died of complications after the operation.”
Latin
complicatio
Middle French
complication
English, today
complication
Borrowed from Middle French complication, from Latin complicatio. Morphologically complicate + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA