tortuosity

American  

[tawr-choo-os-i-tee] / ˌtɔr tʃuˈɒs ɪ ti /

noun

plural

tortuosities

1. the state of being tortuous; twisted form or course; crookedness.

2. a twist, bend, or crook.

3. a twisting or crooked part, passage, or thing.

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tortuosity British  

/ ˌtɔːtjʊˈɒsɪtɪ /

noun

1. the state or quality of being tortuous

2. a twist, turn, or coil

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Etymology

Origin of tortuosity

From the Late Latin word tortuōsitās, dating back to 1595–1605. See tortuous, -ity

Example Sentences

More especially it may now be declared that Professor Teufelsdroeckh’s acquirements, patience of research, philosophic, and even poetic vigor, are here made indisputably manifest; and unhappily no less his prolixity and tortuosity and manifold inaptitude….

From Essays Æsthetical by Calvert, George H. (George Henry)

As I expected, the depraved Whig Journalist, with characteristic mental tortuosity, has asserted that the sounds proceeded from a rookery in the adjoining wood, aided by the braying of the turf-man’s donkey.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 20, 1841 by Various

Dilatation and tortuosity of the anterior ciliary veins are due apparently to excessive flow of blood through them on account of the abnormally small amount carried off by the venae vorticosae.

From Glaucoma A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 by Nance, Willis O.

This necessarily causes a tortuosity of the vessel which can be easily seen in such arteries as the temporals, brachials, radials, and other arteries near the surface of the skin.

From Arteriosclerosis and Hypertension: with Chapters on Blood Pressure, 3rd Edition. by Warfield, Louis Marshall

It is this last characteristic that imparts real value to Dunton's book, and makes it, despite its verbiage and tortuosity, throb with human interest.

From In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays by Birrell, Augustine