- Tortuousness
- 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 leaf or corolla.
[1913 Webster]
The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the side of every hill where the copsewood grew thick. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
2. Fig.: Deviating from rectitude; indirect; erroneous; deceitful. [1913 Webster]
That course became somewhat lesstortuous, when the battle of the Boyne had cowed the spirit of the Jakobites. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
3. Injurious: tortious. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
4. (Astrol.) Oblique; -- applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) which ascend most rapidly and obliquely. [Obs.] --Skeat. [1913 Webster]
Infortunate ascendent tortuous. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] --{Tor"tu*ous*ly}, adv. -- {Tor"tu*ous*ness}, n. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.
