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tortuous. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle English tortuous, tortuose, from Anglo-Norman and Old French tortuos, from Latin tortuōsus, from tortus (“a twisting, winding”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
tortuous (comparative more tortuous, superlative most tortuous)
- (often figurative) Twisted; having many turns; convoluted.
1959 February, G. Freeman Allen, “Southampton—Gateway to the Ocean”, in Trains Illustrated, page 91:The Southern acquired them because the little Class "B4" 0-4-0 tanks were finding heavy modern rolling stock more and more of a handful, and at war's end the railway had nothing of suitable power but short wheelbase on its books to take their place on the more tortuous of the dock lines.
- 2007 October 6, “Slogging on the Home Front”, editorial in The New York Times,
- It still takes almost half a year for the average veteran’s claim for disability benefits to be decided in a tortuous process that can involve four separate hearings.
2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 109:But the early Tubes still tended to follow the public streets in order to save money, hence some tortuous curves.
- (astrology) Oblique; applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) that ascend most rapidly and obliquely.
- (obsolete) Injurious; tortious.
Usage notes
- This term has strongly negative connotations, perhaps transferred from the similar-sounding adjective torturous.
- Not to be confused with the legal term tortious, nor with torturous.
Translations