tortuous
adjective
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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
Michael Barnes, Austin American Statesman, 2 July 2025
Egyptian hieroglyphics gave rise to a number of true alphabets, Latin included, through a tortuous procession of descendants.
—Longreads, 1 July 2025
Then into motorboats for hair-raising dashes through tortuous canals and across rough water to dams far back in some vast marsh.
—Nash Buckingham, Outdoor Life, 19 June 2025
Rainy days aren’t much better, and the summers are quickly becoming just as tortuous.
—Chicago Tribune, 31 May 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 18 Jul. 2025.
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tortuous
adjective
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