tortuous

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔːt͡ʃuːəs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔɹt͡ʃuəs/

Adjective

tortuous (comparative more tortuous, superlative most tortuous)

1. (often figurative) Twisted; having many turns; convoluted.
   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume 1, Porter & Coates, page 243:

     The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the side of every hill where the copsewood grew thick.

   • 1959 February, G. Freeman Allen, “Southampton—Gateway to the Ocean”, in Trains Illustrated, page 91:

     The Southern acquired them because the little Class "B4" 0-4-0 tanks were finding heavy modern rolling stock more and more of a handful, and at war's end the railway had nothing of suitable power but short wheelbase on its books to take their place on the more tortuous of the dock lines.

   • 2007 October 6, “Slogging on the Home Front”, editorial in The New York Times,

     It still takes almost half a year for the average veteran’s claim for disability benefits to be decided in a tortuous process that can involve four separate hearings.

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 109:

     But the early Tubes still tended to follow the public streets in order to save money, hence some tortuous curves.

2. (astrology) Oblique; applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) that ascend most rapidly and obliquely.
   • 1872, Walter William Skeat, Chaucer's A Treatise on the Astrolabe:

     Infortunate ascendent tortuous.

3. (obsolete) Injurious; tortious.

Usage notes

• This term has strongly negative connotations, perhaps transferred from the similar-sounding adjective torturous.
• Not to be confused with the legal term tortious, nor with torturous.

Related terms

English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *terkʷ-‎ (0 c, 22 e)

Translations

twisted

• Bulgarian: изкривен (bg) (izkriven), усукан (bg) (usukan)
• Catalan: tortuós
• Finnish: kiemurainen
• French: tortueux (fr), sinueux (fr)
• Italian: contorto (it)
• Japanese: 曲がりくねった (まがりくねった, magarikunetta)
• Latin: flexuosus
• Persian: پیچاپیچ (fa) (pičâpič)
• Polish: pokrętny, wykrętny, zawiły (pl)
• Portuguese: tortuoso (pt)
• Spanish: tortuoso (es)