means the quality of being elaborately detailed or complex, with many small interrelated parts that resist easy untangling

from From Latin intricare, 'to entangle,' built from in- ('in') plus tricae, meaning 'trifles, perplexities, hindrances' — the little snags that trip you up. The plural tricae literally referred to entanglements, possibly the kind that knot up around the feet (a cousin of extricate, 'to free from snags'). English borrowed the tangle in the 1500s and softened it from a frustration into a fascination.