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