All 6 Uses of
elaborate
in
The Great Gatsby
- Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay.
p. 6..7 (definition 1)elaborate = having ornate details
- Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room.
p. 30..8 (definition 1)elaborate = having fancy detail
- I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie.
p. 33..9 (definition 1) *elaborateness = level of detail
- [Nick describing Gatsby:] ...I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd.
p. 48..5 (definition 2) *elaborate = exaggerated
- I had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say: So my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequence, had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate road-house next door.
p. 64..9 (definition 1)elaborate = fancy or ornate
- It was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up to it.
p. 79..3 (definition 1)elaborate = complicated
Definitions:
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(1) (elaborate as in: an elaborate design) having details and complexity -- sometimes fancy or ornateeditor's notes: Depending upon it's context, this sense of elaborate can additionally imply that details make something either:
- more special than others of its kind in a good way
- more complicated than necessary in a bad way
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(2) (elaborate as in: an elaborate wink) to exaggerate an actioneditor's notes: At times, this sense of elaborate can further imply that an action was exaggerated by prolonging it (performing it more slowly than normal).