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.
4. (Astrol.) Oblique; — applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) which ascend most rapidly and obliquely. Skeat.
Infortunate ascendent tortuous. Chaucer.
—Tor″tu‐ous‐ly, adv. — Tor″tu‐ous‐ness, n.