Byzantine

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Byzant \Byz"ant\, Byzantine \Byz"an*tine\ (-[a^]n"t[imac]n)
     n.[OE. besant, besaunt, F. besant, fr. LL. Byzantius,
     Byzantinus, fr. Byzantium.] (Numis.)
     A gold coin, so called from being coined at Byzantium. See
     {Bezant}.
     [1913 Webster]



From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Byzantine \By*zan"tine\ (b[i^]*z[a^]n"t[i^]n), a.
     Of or pertaining to Byzantium. -- n. A native or inhabitant
     of Byzantium, now Constantinople; sometimes, applied to an
     inhabitant of the modern city of Constantinople. [Written
     also {Bizantine}.]
     [1913 Webster]
  
     {Byzantine church}, the Eastern or Greek church, as
        distinguished from the Western or Roman or Latin church.
        See under {Greek}.
  
     {Byzantine empire}, the Eastern Roman or Greek empire from a.
        d. 364 or a. d. 395 to the capture of Constantinople by
        the Turks, a. d. 1453.
  
     {Byzantine historians}, historians and writers (Zonaras,
        Procopius, etc.) who lived in the Byzantine empire. --P.
        Cyc.
  
     {Byzantine style} (Arch.), a style of architecture developed
        in the Byzantine empire.
  
     Note: Its leading forms are the round arch, the dome, the
           pillar, the circle, and the cross. The capitals of the
           pillars are of endless variety, and full of invention.
           The mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople, and the
           church of St. Mark, Venice, are prominent examples of
           Byzantine architecture.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Byzantine
       adj 1: of or relating to the Eastern Orthodox Church or the rites
              performed in it; "Byzantine monks"; "Byzantine rites"
       2: of or relating to or characteristic of the Byzantine Empire
          or the ancient city of Byzantium
       3: highly involved or intricate; "the Byzantine tax structure";
          "convoluted legal language"; "convoluted reasoning";
          "intricate needlework"; "an intricate labyrinth of refined
          phraseology"; "the plot was too involved"; "a knotty
          problem"; "got his way by labyrinthine maneuvering"; "Oh,
          what a tangled web we weave"- Sir Walter Scott; "tortuous
          legal procedures"; "tortuous negotiations lasting for
          months" [syn: {convoluted}, {intricate}, {involved}, {knotty},
           {labyrinthine}, {tangled}, {tortuous}]
       4: characterized by elaborate scheming and intrigue; devious;
          "Byzantine methods for holding on to his chairmanship"; "a
          fine hand for Byzantine deals and cozy arrangements"
       n : a native or inhabitant of Byzantium or of the Byzantine
           Empire

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  68 Moby Thesaurus words for "Byzantine":
     Machiavellian, artful, balled up, calculating, canny, collusive,
     complex, complicated, confounded, confused, connivent, conniving,
     conspiring, contriving, convoluted, crabbed, crafty, cunning,
     daedal, designing, devious, elaborate, embrangled, entangled,
     fouled up, foxy, gordian, guileful, implicated, insidious,
     intricate, intriguing, involuted, involved, knotted, knotty,
     knowing, labyrinthian, labyrinthine, loused up, many-faceted,
     matted, mazy, meandering, messed up, mixed up, mucked up,
     multifarious, pawky, perplexed, plotting, ramified, roundabout,
     scheming, screwed up, shrewd, slick, sly, snarled, sophisticated,
     stratagemical, subtile, subtle, tangled, tangly, twisted, up to,
     wily
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  Byzantine
       
           A term describing any system that has
          so many labyrinthine internal interconnections that it would
          be impossible to simplify by separation into loosely coupled
          or linked components.
       
          The city of Byzantium, later renamed Constantinople and then
          Istanbul, and the Byzantine Empire were vitiated by a
          bureaucratic overelaboration bordering on lunacy: quadruple
          banked agencies, dozens or even scores of superfluous levels
          and officials with high flown titles unrelated to their actual
          function, if any.
       
          Access to the Emperor and his council was controlled by
          powerful and inscrutable eunuchs and by rival sports factions.
       
          [Edward Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"].
       
          (1999-01-15)