tortuous
adjective
Did you know?
Be careful not to confuse tortuous with torturous. These two words are relatives—both ultimately come from the Latin verb torquere, which means "to twist," "to wind," or "to wrench"—but tortuous means "winding" or "crooked," whereas torturous means "painfully unpleasant." Something tortuous, such as a twisting mountain road, might also be torturous (if, for example, you have to ride up that road on a bicycle), but that doesn't make these words synonyms. The twists and turns that mark a tortuous thing can be literal ("a tortuous path" or "a tortuous river") or figurative ("a tortuous argument" or "a tortuous explanation"), but you should veer away from using the term if no implication of winding or crookedness is present.
Examples of tortuous in a Sentence
Chicago Tribune, 31 May 2025
All this took place against the backdrop of a tortuous revamping of the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade into a stronger World Trade Organization.
—Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 25 May 2025
The poem tells of the Greek hero King Odysseus and his tortuous 10-year journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
—Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Jan. 2025
While examples abound, the state’s woebegone bullet train project, its tortuous efforts to implement information technology and the financial and managerial meltdown of its unemployment insurance program are among the most egregious.
—Dan Walters, Mercury News, 26 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for tortuous
Cite this Entry
“Tortuous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tortuous. Accessed 6 Jun. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
Medical Definition
tortuous
adjective
Share