labyrinthine
adjective
Simple meaning
About or affecting or originating in the inner ear.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
laberintheenSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
læbɚˈɪnθin
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
anatomy
Relating to the labyrinth of the inner ear.
anatomy
Relating to or affecting or originating in the inner ear
Physically resembling a labyrinth; with the qualities of a maze.
figurative
Convoluted, baffling, confusing, perplexing.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Relating to the labyrinth of the inner ear.
Used this way, labyrinthine is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use labyrinthine
- “Labyrinthine deafness.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An artery that is a branch of the basilar artery that supplies the labyrinth.
A sensory system located in structures of the inner ear that registers the orientation of the head.
Veins that drain the inner ear.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.