circuitous
adjective
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In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the titular hero Bilbo Baggins takes a circuitous route to the Lonely Mountain, which he helps to reclaim from a monstrous dragon. Although he successfully arrives there—and returns home again—we do not use the adjective circuitous to suggest that his path traces a perfect circle. We’ll get straight to it: although both circuitous and its relative circuit share roots in circus, the Latin word for “circle” (and ancestor of the English words circle and circus), neither need conjure something shaped like, say, a ring. Just as the noun circuit can refer to an indirect route, circuitous describes routes which can appear circular when mapped, but can also be jagged, squiggly, etc. The point is that a journey such as Bilbo’s is not straight, short, or direct, but rather rambling. When used figuratively, circuitous describes something that is not said or done simply and clearly; an example might be a rambling speech about manners in dangerous situations when a direct “Never laugh at live dragons” would suffice.
Examples of circuitous in a Sentence
Jesse Hyde, Rolling Stone, 21 Oct. 2025
Instead, Putin faces flying a longer, circuitous route via Turkey to Hungary.
—Shane Croucher, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Oct. 2025
These circuitous routes greatly lengthen mission durations and limit launches to tight windows.
—Big Think, 15 Oct. 2025
The writer Susan Dyer Reynolds suggested—through a circuitous series of connections that defied space and time—that Duran was being paid by George Soros.
—Literary Hub, 15 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for circuitous
Cite this Entry
“Circuitous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/circuitous. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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