'Tortuous' definitions:

Definition of 'tortuous'

From: WordNet
adjective
Highly complex or intricate and occasionally devious; "the Byzantine tax structure"; "Byzantine methods for holding on to his chairmanship"; "convoluted legal language"; "convoluted reasoning"; "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: Byzantine, convoluted, involved, knotty, tangled, tortuous]
adjective
Marked by repeated turns and bends; "a tortuous road up the mountain"; "winding roads are full of surprises"; "had to steer the car down a twisty track" [syn: tortuous, twisting, twisty, winding, voluminous]
adjective
Not straightforward; "his tortuous reasoning"

Definition of 'Tortuous'

From: GCIDE
  • Tortuous \Tor"tu*ous\, a. [OE. tortuos, L. tortuosus, fr. tortus a twisting, winding, fr. torquere, tortum, to twist: cf. F. tortueux. See Torture.]
  • 1. Bent in different directions; wreathed; twisted; winding; as, a tortuous train; a tortuous leaf or corolla. [1913 Webster]
  • The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the side of every hill where the copsewood grew thick. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
  • 2. Fig.: Deviating from rectitude; indirect; erroneous; deceitful. [1913 Webster]
  • That course became somewhat lesstortuous, when the battle of the Boyne had cowed the spirit of the Jakobites. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
  • 3. Injurious: tortious. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
  • 4. (Astrol.) Oblique; -- applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) which ascend most rapidly and obliquely. [Obs.] --Skeat. [1913 Webster]
  • Infortunate ascendent tortuous. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] --{Tor"tu*ous*ly}, adv. -- {Tor"tu*ous*ness}, n. [1913 Webster]

Synonyms of 'tortuous'

From: Moby Thesaurus

Words containing 'Tortuous'