Synonyms and antonyms of To be, or to make something, difficult to understand in British Thesaurus

complicate (verb)

to make something more difficult to do, deal with, or understand

confuse (verb)

to make something more complicated or difficult to understand

obscure (verb)

to make something difficult to understand

mystify (verb)

if someone or something mystifies you, you cannot understand or explain it

baffle (verb)

if a problem, someone’s behaviour etc baffles you, you cannot understand it or solve it

confound (verb)

if you are confounded by something, you cannot understand it

deepen (verb)

if a mystery deepens, or if something deepens it, it becomes more complicated and difficult to understand

defy (verb)

if something defies description, belief, or understanding, it is strange and almost impossible to describe, believe, or understand

be beyond someone ()

to be too difficult for someone to understand or deal with

be (as) clear as mud ()

to be very difficult to understand

blind someone with science/technology ()

to explain something to someone in a very complicated way, in order to impress them rather than to help them understand

blur (verb)

if something such as a memory or an idea has blurred, or if something has blurred it, it is no longer clear in your mind

clutter (verb)

to put too many facts, pictures etc in something so that it becomes hard to understand

enshroud (verb)

literary to make something difficult to know or understand

fog (verb)

to make something confusing or difficult to understand

go all round the houses ()

to say or do something in a very complicated way when it could be very simple

muddy the waters/issue ()

to make a situation more complicated or difficult than it needs to be

obfuscate (verb)

formal to deliberately make something confusing or difficult to understand

tergiversate (verb)

formalshowing disapproval to make inconsistent statements or avoid answering a question directly

tergiversation (noun)

formalshowing disapproval making statements that are contradictory or designed to avoid giving direct answers