Meanings
plural tortuosities
- countableuncountabletortuousness; tortuous condition or nature.
- countableuncountableCrookedness.
1 more example
So far from seeking to "pettifogulise"—i.e., to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction—exactly in the opposite direction, from mere excess of sincerity, most unwillingly I found, in almost everybody's words, an unintentional opening left for double interpretations.
1853, Thomas De Quincey, “Introduction to the World of Strife”, in Autobiographic Sketches (De Quincey’s Works; I), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, page 59 - countableuncountablenatural sciencesA property of curve being tortuous, commonly used to describe diffusion in porous media.
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna tortuous and twisted shape or position
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Latintortuositas
- Englishtortuosity
From tortuo(u)s + -ity, from Latin tortuositas; compare French tortuosité.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
German Tortuosität
- Tortuosität(physics) property of curve being tortuous
Portuguese tortuosidade
- tortuosidade(physics) property of curve being tortuous
Spanish tortuosidad
- tortuosidad(physics) property of curve being tortuous
Swedish tortuositet
- tortuositet(physics) property of curve being tortuous
Cite this entry
tortuosity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tortuosity
“tortuosity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tortuosity. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tortuosity,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tortuosity.
Source: tortuosity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.