torturous

[ tawr-cher-uhs ]

adjective

1. pertaining to, involving, or causing torture or suffering.

Confusables Note

Torturous refers specifically to what involves or causes pain or suffering: prisoners working in the torturous heat; torturous memories of past injustice. Some speakers and writers use torturous for tortuous , especially in the senses “twisting, winding” and “convoluted”: a torturous road; torturous descriptions. Others, however, keep the two adjectives (and their corresponding adverbs) separate in all senses: a tortuous (twisting) road; tortuous (convoluted) descriptions; torturous (painful) treatments.

Other Words From

• tortur·ous·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of torturous¹

First recorded in 1490–1500; from Anglo-French; Old French tortureus; torture, -ous

Example Sentences

Throughout it all, the Biden administration, with allies Egypt and Qatar, engaged in torturous talks to reach a cessation of hostilities.

From Los Angeles Times

Officials still know little about the extent of the Portuguese Bend land movement on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, leaving residents in a torturous limbo.

From Los Angeles Times

For Erice, a master, cinema works as a revelatory force that can illuminate our truest feelings and yearnings, despite the efforts of some of his characters to escape their torturous pasts.

From Los Angeles Times

Its torturous racial etiquette often prompts epithets as surely as hypocrisy prompts hostility.

From Salon

"It is really traumatising and torturous that I am helpless to help him."

From BBC

Related Words

• agonizing
• distressing
• excruciating
• harrowing
• trying

Torturous Vs. Tortuous

What’s the difference between torturous and tortuous?

Torturous is used to describe things that are painful or that cause suffering, as if they were a form of torture. Tortuous means winding or full of twists and turns, as in a tortuous path, but it can also be used in a more figurative way to mean indirect, convoluted, or even devious.

Both words are adjectives, and their spellings are separated by only one letter—making their pronunciations very similar. Making things even more confusing is that there are some situations in which it could make sense to use either word. For example, a piece of writing that’s extremely hard to follow because of how unorganized it is could be described as both tortuous (because it’s so meandering) and torturous (because it’s like torture to read it).

The best way to remember the difference is that torturous has a second r in it, just like its base word, torture. If you want to use the word tortuous in a piece of writing and you’re worried it might be confusing, you might be right! Luckily, there are plenty of alternative words that can be used in the same way, depending on what you mean, such as winding, meandering, circuitous, indirect, and convoluted.

Here’s an example of torturous and tortuous used correctly in the same sentence.

Example: Trying to follow the tortuous arguments in the meandering paper was torturous. 

Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between torturous and tortuous.

Quiz yourself on torturous vs. tortuous!

Should torturous or tortuous be used in the following sentence?

The _____ switchback trail snaked up and down the mountainside.