byzantine

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: Byz=an=tine

CIDE DICTIONARY

byzantine, n. [OE. besant, besaunt, F. besant, fr. LL. Byzantius, Byzantinus, fr. Byzantium.].

 A gold coin, so called from being coined at Byzantium. See Bezant.  [1913 Webster]

byzantine, a. 

 Of or pertaining to Byzantium.  [1913 Webster]
"Its leading forms are the round arch, the dome, the pillar, the circle, and the cross. The capitals of the pillars are of endless variety, and full of invention. The mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople, and the church of St. Mark, Venice, are prominent examples of Byzantine architecture."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

byzantine, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 of Byzantium or the E. Roman Empire.
2 (of a political situation etc.): a extremely complicated. b inflexible. c carried on by underhand methods.
3 Archit. & Painting of a highly decorated style developed in the Eastern Empire.
--n. a citizen of Byzantium or the E. Roman Empire.

Derivative

Byzantinism n. Byzantinist n.

Etymology

F byzantin or L Byzantinus f. Byzantium, later Constantinople and now Istanbul

THESAURUS

byzantine

Machiavellian, artful, balled up, calculating, canny, collusive, complex, complicated, confounded, confused, connivent, conniving, conspiring, contriving, convoluted, crabbed, crafty, cunning, daedal, designing, devious, elaborate, embrangled, entangled, fouled up, foxy, gordian, guileful, implicated, insidious, intricate, intriguing, involuted, involved, knotted, knotty, knowing, labyrinthian, labyrinthine, loused up, many-faceted, matted, mazy, meandering, messed up, mixed up, mucked up, multifarious, pawky, perplexed, plotting, ramified, roundabout, scheming, screwed up, shrewd, slick, sly, snarled, sophisticated, stratagemical, subtile, subtle, tangled, tangly, twisted, up to, wily