labyrinth

[ lab-uh-rinth ]

noun

1. an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit.

   Synonyms: web, network, maze

2. a maze of paths bordered by high hedges, as in a park or garden, for the amusement of those who search for a way out.
3. a complicated or tortuous arrangement, as of streets or buildings.

   Synonyms: knot, tangle, snarl, jungle, maze, warren

4. any confusingly intricate state of things or events; a bewildering complex:

   His papers were lost in an hellish bureaucratic labyrinth.

   After the death of her daughter, she wandered in a labyrinth of sorrow for what seemed like a decade.

   Synonyms: morass, forest, jungle, wilderness

5. Labyrinth. Classical Mythology. a vast maze built in Crete by Daedalus, at the command of King Minos, to house the Minotaur.
6. Anatomy.
   1. the internal ear, consisting of a bony portion bony labyrinth and a membranous portion membranous labyrinth.
   2. the aggregate of air chambers in the ethmoid bone, between the eye and the upper part of the nose.
7. a mazelike pattern inlaid in the pavement of a church.
8. Also called acoustic labyrinth;. Audio. a loudspeaker enclosure with air chambers at the rear for absorbing sound waves radiating in one direction so as to prevent their interference with waves radiated in another direction.

Labyrinth

¹

/ ˈlæbərɪnθ /

noun

1. Greek myth a huge maze constructed for King Minos in Crete by Daedalus to contain the Minotaur

labyrinth

²

/ ˈlæbərɪnθ /

noun

1. a mazelike network of tunnels, chambers, or paths, either natural or man-made Compare maze
2. any complex or confusing system of streets, passages, etc
3. a complex or intricate situation
4. 1. any system of interconnecting cavities, esp those comprising the internal ear
   2. another name for internal ear
5. electronics an enclosure behind a high-performance loudspeaker, consisting of a series of air chambers designed to absorb unwanted sound waves

labyrinth

/ lăb′ə-rĭnth′ /

1. The system of interconnecting canals and spaces that make up the inner ear of many vertebrates. The labyrinth has both a bony component, made up of the cochlea, the semicircular canals, and the vestibule, and a membranous one.

Labyrinth

1. In classical mythology , a vast maze on the island of Crete . The great inventor Daedalus designed it, and the king of Crete kept the Minotaur in it. Very few people ever escaped from the Labyrinth. One was Theseus , the killer of the Minotaur.

Notes

A labyrinth can be literally a maze or figuratively any highly intricate construction or problem.

Word History and Origins

Origin of labyrinth¹

First recorded in 1540–50; from Latin labyrinthus, from Greek labýrinthos; replacing earlier laborynt, from Medieval Latin laborintus, Latin, as above

Word History and Origins

Origin of labyrinth¹

C16: via Latin from Greek laburinthos, of obscure origin

Example Sentences

Otherwise, you just pull on your warmest socks and snow boots, toss your snowshoes in the back of your car, and choose your own wintertime labyrinth to explore.

From Washington Post

It seems that resolving advertising’s identity crisis is like negotiating a maze and advertisers have no idea what waits for them at the end of the labyrinth.

From Digiday

Thousands of crocodiles patrol an adjoining labyrinth of manmade cooling canals.

From Quartz

Nearly 300 of the bald, bucktoothed, nearly blind rodents can scoot along a colony’s labyrinth of tunnels.

From Science News

It is a contentious, mathematical labyrinth of public policy.

From Voice of San Diego

As Fox explains in Making Time, a labyrinth of aging pipelines and forgotten wells crisscrosses the city.

From The Daily Beast

It was a ponderous labyrinth of bolts, locks, and steel doors, making it an almost impregnable fortress.

From The Daily Beast

As Margalit Fox says at the outset of The Riddle of the Labyrinth, the story of Linear B is well known.

From The Daily Beast

This is wishful thinking: a plunge into the labyrinth with no thread to lead them back out.

From The Daily Beast

As it has come down to us “on the borders of pottery and textiles, the meander resembles a maze or labyrinth.”

From The Daily Beast

Here opens up, very evidently, a perfect labyrinth of complexity.

From Project Gutenberg

But it was the labyrinth for which the earlier economist held, so he thought, the thread.

From Project Gutenberg

What thread shall guide us in this labyrinth of conjectures and contradictions from the very first verse to the very last?

From Project Gutenberg

You will not wonder that I lose time and catch at every hope, rather than involve myself in that labyrinth of Chicane and expense.

From Project Gutenberg

It was approached through a labyrinth of streets that grew denser and darker as one neared the precincts of the club.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• tangle