Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

convoluted

UK/ˌkɒnvəˈl(j)uːtɪd/US/ˌkɑnvəˈlutəd/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,117 of 15,258leans written

Convoluted means so twisted and involved that it is hard to follow. A convoluted argument, convoluted rules, needlessly convoluted.

It is always a criticism, and calling an explanation convoluted says the difficulty is in the telling rather than the subject. The literal sense is coiled, which is why the folds of the brain are called convolutions.

Definitions of convoluted

  1. 1adjectiveconvolutedSo twisted and involved that it is hard to follow.C1

    “The film's plot was so convoluted that I lost track halfway through.”

convoluted is a quality.

Where it comes from

From convolute + -ed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

convoluted in the wild

  • Spaghetti code is computer source code that encodes control flow that is convoluted, and therefore, hard to understand.

    Spaghetti code

  • Since control flow logic encoded via the goto statement tends to lead to convoluted control flow, use of goto is often associated with a classification as spaghetti code.

    Spaghetti code

  • The distal convoluted tubule (DCT) is a portion of kidney nephron between the loop of Henle and the collecting tubule.

    Distal convoluted tubule

  • The proximal tubule can be further classified into the proximal convoluted tubule (PCT) and the proximal straight tubule (PST).

    Proximal tubule

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.