[ad. L. ēlabōrāt-us, pa. pple. of ēlabōrāre to ELABORATE.]
† A. as pple. = ELABORATED: see ELABORATE v.
1581. Nowell & Day, in Confer., I. (1584), G b. It was elaborate before, by the … studie of all the best learned Iesuites.
B. as adj.
1. Produced or accomplished by labor. Also, that has been subjected to processes of art; = ELABORATED. Obs. or arch.
1592. Nashe, P. Penilesse (ed. 2), 19 a. Some elaborate pollished Poems.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 34. The Gray … leaueth her elaborate house to the Fox.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XIV. 360. The vast unnumber’d store Of steel elab’rate, and refulgent ore.
1779. Johnson, L. P., Cowley, Wks. II. 65. He has no elegances either lucky or elaborate.
1814. Southey, Roderick, XXV. 152. Eyeing the elaborate steel.
2. Worked out in much detail; highly finished.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. ii. IV. (1676), 176/1. Those elaborate Maps of Ortelius.
1687. Penal Laws, 22. A … veneration for his Learned and Elabourate Works.
1704. Davenant, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 397, IV. 244. I had prepared a very elaborate letter to Her Royal Highness.
1862. Darwin, Fertil. Orchids, ii. 71. In the same flower we apparently have elaborate contrivances for directly opposed objects.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, X. v. 393. In scientific pursuits the preparations are usually elaborate.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 112. He then proceeds to give another and more elaborate explanation of the whole passage.
b. Of an investigation, a study, an operation, etc.: Conducted with great minuteness. Hence transf. applied to personal agents or their attributes: Minutely careful, painstaking.
1649. Milton, Eikon., iv. (1851), 362. The King was emphatical and elaborate on this Theam against Tumults.
1669. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, I. III. ii. 28. Amongst the Ancients, none have spent more elaborate studies herein than Eusebius.
1728. Morgan, Algiers, I. iii. 37. He was a most curious and elaborate Collector of valuable Histories.
1782. V. Knox, Ess. (1819), III. cxxxvii. 89. From the annals of the elaborate Maittaire.
a. 1836. W. Godwin, Essays (1873), 193. The world is busy and elaborate to tear him from my recollection.
1872. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 86. He read Shakespeare, and made an elaborate study of his method.
