tortuous
7
8.1
- adjective
- /ˈtɔrʧuəs/
:
tortuoso
- The hiker carefully followed the tortuous trail that wound up the steep mountain.
- tortuous path
- tortuous process
- follow a tortuous path
My profession shares with you that mission, the always arduous, often tortuous, and yet essential pursuit of truth.
- My profession shares with you that mission, the always arduous, often tortuous, and yet essential pursuit of truth.
- So in that case, if you get a maze of tortuous lines, these in general indicate forgery.
Examples
-
After a tortuous debate, they finally reached a consensus on the proposal.
-
The story of the nearly thirteen years of UN sanctions on Iraq is long and tortuous.
Academic text (2004) -
But it is only one step on a much longer and more tortuous path.
Academic text (2007) -
Their efforts were long and tortuous but ultimately rewarded with a measure of success.
Academic text (1992) -
After that brief, tortuous encounter, I rarely saw my old best friend again.
Fiction book (1997) -
All of these claims have now succeeded, albeit only after long and tortuous litigation.
Academic text (2017) -
Here, a tortuous zigzagging trail known as the Serpent Path makes its way to the top.
-
To enter the housing past the slinger, the water must follow a tortuous route through these overlapping surfaces.
Academic text (1995) -
Thus, throughout the CIS, the road to democracy will necessarily be long, winding, and often tortuous.
Academic text (2004) -
Val guides the truck down a tortuous, rocky, almost impassable trail.
Fiction book (1990)
Synonyms
∞
1.6
Not easy to do or understand
876
5.4
Difficult to understand or deal with because it has many connected parts
214
3.9
Difficult to do because it has hidden problems
31
8.6
Very complicated and hard to follow, often not needed
16
6.6
Complicated and hard to understand
11
4.7
A road or story with many bends and sudden changes
9
6.4
Difficult to understand
9
8.4
Taking a longer, indirect way instead of a direct route
6
9.8
Very complex and difficult to understand, often about systems and rules
4
6.8
Very complicated and hard to follow, like rules or relationships
4
7.6
Winding and twisting like a snake
4
9.2
Having many parts that are hard to follow like a maze
1
8.1
Difficult to solve or understand, often about problems
1
8.6
Very difficult to solve, cleverly made to confuse people
1
6.2
More complex than it needs to be
1
3.6
Having many curves like a winding road
1
5.7
Full of confusing, twisting paths that are hard to find your way through
1
9.6
A plan, story or place with many twisting parts that confuse people
Having many bends and turns like a winding road
Not straight and turning many times like a mountain road
A path or road that has many twists and turns
Having many twisting passages that are hard to find your way through
Very hard to understand because it is complicated
Extremely difficult problem that seems impossible to solve, like a tangled knot
Full of many tangled parts that are hard to follow
Antonyms
How Winding
Surface Forms
Morphology
tortuous = tort + ous
Formed from the combining root 'tort-' (meaning 'twist') plus the productive adjectival suffix '-ous'; because the root 'tort-' is not a standalone modern English word, the relation is only partially obvious to average learners.
Etymology
Tortuous comes from the Latin verb torquere, which means 'to twist'. Like torture and torque, it carries the idea of twisting, so a tortuous road or argument is full of twists and not straightforward.