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tortuous |
2 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: 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 train; a tortuous leaf or corolla. The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the side of every hill where the copsewood grew thick. --Macaulay. 2. Fig.: Deviating from rectitude; indirect; erroneous; deceitful. That course became somewhat lesstortuous when the battle of the Boyne had cowed the spirit of the Jakobites --Macaulay. 3. Injurious: tortious. [Obs.] 4. (Astrol.) Oblique; -- applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) which ascend most rapidly and obliquely. [Obs.] --Skeat. Infortunate ascendent tortuous. --Chaucer. --{Tor"tu*ous*ly}, adv -- {Tor"tu*ous*ness}, n. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: tortuous adj 1: highly involved or intricate; "the Byzantine tax structure"; "convoluted legal language"; "convoluted reasoning"; "an intricate labyrinth of refined phraseology"; "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}, {intricate}, {involved}, {knotty}, {labyrinthine}, {tangled}] 2: 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: {twisting}, {twisty}, {winding}] 3: not straightforward; "his tortuous reasoning"
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