tortuosity

T1O1R1T1U1O1S1I1T1Y4

noun

tortuousness; tortuous condition or nature.

RareScrabble 13

Meanings

nountortuosity (countable and uncountable, plural tortuosities)

plural tortuosities

  1. countableuncountabletortuousness; tortuous condition or nature.
  2. 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
  3. countableuncountablenatural sciencesA property of curve being tortuous, commonly used to describe diffusion in porous media.

Synonyms & antonyms

nouna tortuous and twisted shape or position

Broader
distorted shapedistortion

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

  1. Latintortuositas
  2. Englishtortuosity

From tortuo(u)s + -ity, from Latin tortuositas; compare French tortuosité.

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
APA

tortuosity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tortuosity

MLA

“tortuosity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tortuosity. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tortuosity,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tortuosity.

Source: tortuosity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.