tortuous

UK/ˈtɔːt͡ʃuːəs/US/ˈtɔɹt͡ʃuəs/

adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,805 of 15,258leans written

Tortuous means full of twists, and hard to follow. A tortuous route, tortuous negotiations, a tortuous explanation.

It is a different word from torturous, which means causing pain, and the two are confused endlessly, though a tortuous process often is both. The Latin means full of twists.

Definitions of tortuous

1adjectivetortuousFull of twists, and hard to follow.C1
“The tortuous mountain road twisted back and forth for miles.”

tortuous is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin tortuosus comes from tortus, a twisting, from torquere, to twist.

Proto-Indo-European
*terkʷ-
Latin
tortuōsus
Old French
tortuos
Middle English
tortuous
English, today
tortuous

Built from

tortus · Latin — a twisting, winding

From Middle English tortuous, tortuose, from Anglo-Norman - and Old French tortuos, from Latin tortuōsus, from tortus (“a twisting, winding”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

tortuous in the wild

Blood vessels within the papillae are dilated and tortuous, and often bleed readily when the scale is removed.
Auspitz's sign
The most tortuous part of its course is between Nanchong and Wusheng County.
Jialing River
The spinal veins (veins of the medulla spinalis or veins of the spinal cord) are situated in the pia mater and form a minute, tortuous, venous plexus.
Spinal veins
Additionally, lack of pulsation distinguishes this lesion of the lower lip from a tortuous segment of the inferior labial artery.
Venous lake

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.

Related words

the tortus family

truss tortuous

tortuous — used about once every 27,725 pages · #13,805 · point at the bar for the others

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