Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use tortuous in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective

Tortuous means twisted; having many turns; convoluted. Example: “But the early Tubes still tended to follow the public streets in order to save money, hence some tortuous curves.”

Examples of tortuous by meaning

adjectiveTwisted; having many turns; convoluted.

  • But the early Tubes still tended to follow the public streets in order to save money, hence some tortuous curves.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 109

More sentences with tortuous

  • But Love Island’s tortuous trysts are fuelled by fruit juice and nosecco.2022 July 18, Amelia Tait, “‘Alcohol is a hand grenade’: how reality TV went from boozy Big Brother to nosecco Love Island”, in The Guardian. From the entry on the wagon
  • We travel along tortuous forest roads in the most 'pikey' part ofVarmland — the whole time alongside water.2003, Michael Jensen, Fly-Fishing: For Pike, →ISBN, page 12. From the entry pikey
  • I published tortuous essays in obscure journals.1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. From the entry uranist
  • A dark purple fluid appeared to pulse in the tortuous anastomoses of channels which lay under the surface.1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed. From the entry anastomosis
  • With the CE protocol, tortuous loops were better detected in 43.5%, capillary nonperfusion regions in 26.1%, and neovascularization and hemorrhages in 13% each.2015 July 9, Chaitra Jayadev et al., “Enhancing Image Characteristics of Retinal Images of Aggressive Posterior Retinopathy of Prematurity…. From the entry nonperfusion
  • As this tortuous wording suggests, models and their reflections keep reversing in the mirror, in a sort of “after you, Alphonse—no, after you” exchange.2010, Wendy Steiner, The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art, page 109. From the entry after you, Alphonse
  • Here Tony is unconvincingly cast as a comprehensive school teacher who through some tortuous contrivance ends up as an unwitting, and apparently unwilling, gigolo.1993 April 9, Chris Rundle, “Too much of Tony . . .”, in Western Daily Press, Temple Way, Bristol, page 7. From the entry bedwettingly
  • Practiced on an international scale, eugenocide will do much to prevent lingering, tortuous death by starvation, occasioned so often by overbrowse in underdeveloped nations.1971, Intellectual Digest - Volume 2, page 286. From the entry eugenocide
  • The next morning Oswald stopped short in the middle of his shaving, which in his case involved the most tortuous deflections and grimacings.1918, H. G. Wells, Joan and Peter. From the entry deflection
  • An updated version of the book includes a section on what they called “sludge”—tortuous administrative demands, endless wait times, and excessive procedural fuss that impede us in our lives.[2025 June 29, Chris Colin, “That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose.”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 29 Jun 2025, Ideas. From the entry sludge
  • Nowadays people also go at great lengths to come up with ways to decipher the ID of a silent empid, but it is something of a tortuous task.2019 September 25, Mark Dennis, “A Digital Solution for a Silent Empid”, in Cape Sable Birding (blog), archived from the original on 02…. From the entry empid
  • It was quite dark when, after an arduous climb, the sheriff made his tortuous way through the chaparral to the point where Anthony Garland should be stationed.1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter IV, in The Understanding Heart. From the entry chaparral
  • And following that was a tortuous passage through a weird region of clay dunes, blue and violet and heliotrope and lavender, all worn smooth by rain and wind.1917 January, Zane Grey, chapter VI, in Wildfire, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 78. From the entry heliotrope
  • He had often painted himself at a mirror, a tortuous and fascinating proceeding, as every artist knows, and had been forced to admire the way in which he was made.1919, Rita Wellman, The Wings of Desire. From the entry proceeding

Meaning of tortuous

  1. adjective Twisted; having many turns; convoluted.
  2. adjective Oblique; applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) that ascend most rapidly and obliquely.
  3. adjective Injurious; tortious.

Full definition of tortuous

Questions about tortuous in a sentence

How do you use tortuous in a sentence?
Tortuous is used as an adjective. For example: “But the early Tubes still tended to follow the public streets in order to save money, hence some tortuous curves.”
What is a short sentence with tortuous?
“I published tortuous essays in obscure journals.”
What does tortuous mean?
Tortuous means twisted; having many turns; convoluted.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tortuous (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use tortuous in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/tortuous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.