How to use elaborate in a sentence
40 example sentences · adjective, verb
Elaborate means complex, detailed, or sophisticated. Example: “After reading a long, elaborate description, I was impressed but no wiser.”
Examples of elaborate by meaning
adjectiveComplex, detailed, or sophisticated.
- After reading a long, elaborate description, I was impressed but no wiser.
adjectiveIntricate, fancy, flashy, or showy.
- I stared for hours at the elaborate pattern in the rug.
- The house was a big elaborate limestone affair, evidently new.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
verbТo develop in detail or complexity.
- The notion of blood purity was first elaborated in Europe, where it was used to separate Old Christians from Spain’s New Christians—women and men of Jewish and Muslim origin whose ancestors had converted to Christianity.2009, Irene Silverblatt, “Foreword”, in Andrew B. Fisher, Matthew D. O'hara, editors, Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial...
verbTo expand/enlarge in detail.
- What do you mean you didn't come home last night? Would you care to elaborate?
- Could you elaborate on the plot for your novel for me?
More sentences with elaborate
- King Charles III’s coronation is to be much less elaborate compared to his mother’s.From the entry coronation
- Most cottages in the area were larger and more elaborate than my home.From the entry cottage
- The bird was courting a potential mate by performing an elaborate dance.From the entry court
- The dinner was a parade of courses, each featuring foods more elaborate than the last.From the entry parade
- Gino has an amaretto on the porch after every elaborate meal.From the entry amaretto
- Late fees and credit rating are an elaborate game of gotcha.From the entry game of gotcha
- Physrepping doesn't have to be elaborate if you know how to do it effectively.From the entry physrepping
- The furry had designed an elaborate costume.From the entry furry
- The laboratory included an elaborate setup for measuring the energy.From the entry setup
- A small, dark kitchen is not conducive to elaborate cooking.From the entry conducive
- The greater Dionysia were held at Athens in March or April, and were celebrated with elaborate performances of tragedies and comedies.From the entry dionysia
- The male Wilson's bird of paradise clears an area of rainforest to create a court in which to perform an elaborate mating dance.From the entry court
- Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh: The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) runs one of India's most elaborate donation-management systems.2026 July 13, “How big temples guard their donations”, in India Today, volume 51, number 27, page 30. From the entry hundi
- Philosophers of doom tend to get hung up on elaborate sci-fi-inflected hypotheticals.2024 March 18, Andrew Marantz, “О.К., Doomer”, in The New Yorker, page 45. From the entry hypothetical
- Buttressed by elaborate account statements and a deep reservoir of trust from his investors and regulators, Mr.2021 April 14, Diana B. Henriques, “Bernard Madoff, Architect of Largest Ponzi Scheme in History, Is Dead at 82”, in The New York Times…. From the entry buttress
- Brown triumphantly astride her headstanding elephant, arms raised high, her elaborate headdress perfectly in place.2021 July 23, Neil Genzlinger, “Alice Clark Brown, Black Star in a White Circus, Dies at 68”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The…. From the entry headstand
- But in “Alex Prager,” she has elaborated on these signature techniques with her first sculpture.2018 January 9, Leanne Mirandilla, “Alex Prager: The artist who straddles the real and the imagined”, in CNN. From the entry Prager
- Before them is an elaborate presentation of shashliki in the shape of a dartboard.2016 July, Irina Reyn, “Tanya”, in The Imperial Wife, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Dunne Books, →ISBN, page 127. From the entry shashlik
- Primary screening of the immunotropic activity of aloe preparations elaborated by V.P.2014 June 27, Barbara Joanna Bałan et al., “Oral administration of Aloe vera gel, anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory herbal remedy…. From the entry immunotropic
- Hat-tippings and cap-doffings are of course of a different nature to more elaborate verbal greetings.2013, Peter Andersson, Streetlife in Late Victorian London: The Constable and the Crowd. From the entry tipping
- The griffe, however, is often used for elaborate ornamentation, being carved into vegetable or even animal form.2013, Russell Sturgis, Francis A. Davis, Sturgis' Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture and Building: An Unabridged Reprint of the 1901-2…. From the entry griffe
- The text's indecidability is elaborated in terms of and as an operative feature of its textuality.2013, Hugh J. Silverman, Textualities, page 80. From the entry indecidability
- Soon Marshall is doing an elaborate foot-to-foot jig, and then they're all bounding around.2012 November 15, Tom Lamont, “How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world”, in The Daily Telegraph. From the entry jig
- An elaborate cascabel stuck out of the mouth of each animal.2011, Chris Messner, Cuba Open from the Inside: Travels in the Forbidden Land. From the entry cascabel
- The classic version of financière sauce is rather esoteric, a tomato-and-Madeira-flavored brown sauce with elaborate garnishes.2011, Jacques Pépin, Essential Pépin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton…. From the entry financière
- She elaborates further: "It has given me great satisfaction and fulfillment that people like my recolors.2010, J. Gee, Elisabeth R. Hayes, Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning, page 88. From the entry recolor
- They are signals that listeners use to encourage speakers to elaborate on their message.2009, Shirley Taylor, Alison Lester, STTS-Communication: Your Key to Success, page 54. From the entry door opener
- An elaborate bundle of techniques called computus therefore developed around Easter calculations.2008, Ian F. McNeely, Lisa Wolverton, Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet, page 68. From the entry computus
- Newsom uses a harp and her froggish little voice to spin elaborate, beguiling fantasies.2008 February 1, “Pop and rock listings”, in The New York Times. From the entry froggish
- Such ideas goad uncreative colleagues into building more elaborate strategies to conceal their lack of creativity.2008 [2006], Douglas Coupland, JPod, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 182. From the entry get one's juices flowing
- The elaborate and costly provision for witnessing the solstitial event alone confirms this.2006, Jacqueline Ingalls Garnett, Newgrange Speaks for Itself: Forty Carved Motifs, page 18. From the entry solstitial
- The politics-administration dichotomy initiated by Wilson was later elaborated by Frank J.2005, S. P. Naidu, Public Administration: Concepts And Theories, page 55. From the entry dichotomy
- They support their argument with elaborate engravings from the Messak bearing chiroform patterns resembling the "open woman".2004, Sahara, number 15. From the entry chiroform
- Others with similar elaborate adytons are at Qasr Neba and Sfira in Lebanon.2002, Warwick Ball, Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page 337. From the entry adyton
Meaning of elaborate
- adjective Complex, detailed, or sophisticated.
- adjective Intricate, fancy, flashy, or showy.
- verb Тo develop in detail or complexity.
Questions about elaborate in a sentence
- How do you use elaborate in a sentence?
- Elaborate is used as an adjective and verb. For example: “After reading a long, elaborate description, I was impressed but no wiser.”
- What is a short sentence with elaborate?
- “The furry had designed an elaborate costume.”
- What does elaborate mean?
- Elaborate means complex, detailed, or sophisticated.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: elaborate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use elaborate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/elaborate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
