Meaning & use
unnecessary complexity
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
The state of being more complicated than a situation, system, or task really needs to be.
Grammar: Used as a mass noun: you talk about unnecessary complexity in general, not 'an unnecessary complexity' unless you mean one specific complicated feature.
Patterns
- unnecessary complexity in something
- add unnecessary complexity to something
- avoid unnecessary complexity
The new approval process added unnecessary complexity to a simple task.
Good designers try to remove unnecessary complexity from the user interface.
There is unnecessary complexity in the tax rules that confuses ordinary people.
nouncountable
A feature or detail that makes something harder to understand or use than it should be.
Grammar: Countable here, often plural: you can point to specific 'unnecessary complexities' in a system.
Patterns
- introduce unnecessary complexities
- full of unnecessary complexities
The report is full of unnecessary complexities that could be simplified.
We should remove any unnecessary complexities before launching the product.
Common combinations
- add unnecessary complexity
- Adding more rules will only add unnecessary complexity.
- avoid unnecessary complexity
- The team tried to avoid unnecessary complexity in the design.
- reduce unnecessary complexity
- The goal is to reduce unnecessary complexity in the application process.
- unnecessary complexity in the system
- There is too much unnecessary complexity in the system.
- create unnecessary complexity
- Using two different software tools can create unnecessary complexity.
Synonyms and how they differ
- overcomplication
- Suggests that someone has made something too complicated, often by mistake; it is slightly more informal than 'unnecessary complexity'.
- red tape
- Refers specifically to excessive official rules and procedures, not to complexity in general.
- convolutedness
- Describes something that is extremely twisted and hard to follow; it is more formal and less common.
Opposites
Word family
- complex adjective
- Having many connected parts and therefore hard to understand.
- complexity noun
- The quality of being complicated or having many parts.
- complexly adverb
- In a complicated way.
- unnecessarily adverb
- In a way that is not needed.
Commonly confused: unnecessary complexity or complexity?
unnecessary complexity vs complexity
'Complexity' is neutral and simply means the state of having many parts; 'unnecessary complexity' adds the judgment that the complication is not needed.
Practice
The manager warned that adding more approval steps would only ______ unnecessary complexity to the process.
Choose one answer.
'Add unnecessary complexity' is the natural collocation. 'Make' would need a different structure like 'make the process more complex', and 'do' and 'take' do not collocate with 'complexity' in this sense.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “unnecessary complexity”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.