'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
- affected,
- ambagious,
- ambiguous,
- anamorphous,
- anfractuous,
- askew,
- asymmetric,
- bedizened,
- bent,
- big-sounding,
- billowing,
- billowy,
- bowed,
- circuitous,
- circumlocutory,
- cockeyed,
- complicated,
- contorted,
- convoluted,
- convolutional,
- cranky,
- crazy,
- crooked,
- crumpled,
- crunched,
- curled,
- curling,
- curvaceous,
- curvate,
- curvated,
- curve,
- curved,
- curvesome,
- curviform,
- curvilineal,
- curvilinear,
- curving,
- curvy,
- deceptive,
- declamatory,
- deviative,
- devious,
- distorted,
- elevated,
- euphuistic,
- flamboyant,
- flaming,
- flashy,
- flaunting,
- flexuose,
- flexuous,
- fulsome,
- garish,
- gaudy,
- geosynclinal,
- Gongoresque,
- grandiloquent,
- grandiose,
- grandisonant,
- high-flowing,
- high-flown,
- high-flying,
- high-sounding,
- highfalutin,
- incurvate,
- incurvated,
- incurved,
- incurving,
- indirect,
- inkhorn,
- intricate,
- involute,
- involuted,
- involutional,
- involved,
- irregular,
- Johnsonian,
- labyrinthine,
- lexiphanic,
- lofty,
- lopsided,
- lurid,
- magniloquent,
- mazy,
- meandering,
- meandrous,
- meretricious,
- misleading,
- nonsymmetric,
- one-sided,
- orotund,
- ostentatious,
- overdone,
- overelaborate,
- overinvolved,
- overwrought,
- pedantic,
- pompous,
- pretentious,
- recurvate,
- recurvated,
- recurved,
- recurving,
- rhetorical,
- rivose,
- rivulose,
- roundabout,
- ruffled,
- sensational,
- sensationalistic,
- sententious,
- serpentine,
- showy,
- sinuate,
- sinuose,
- sinuous,
- snaky,
- sonorous,
- sprung,
- stilted,
- tall,
- torsional,
- tortile,
- tricky,
- turning,
- twisted,
- twisting,
- twisty,
- undulant,
- unstraightforward,
- unsymmetric,
- wandering,
- warped,
- wavy,
- whorled,
- winding,
- wreathlike,
- wreathy,
- zigzag