tortuosity
(tɔːtjuːˈɒsɪtɪ)
[ad. L. tortuōsitās, from tortuōs-us tortuous: see -ity. Cf. F. tortuosité, Pr. tortuositat, It. tortuosità.]
The quality or condition of being tortuous; twistedness, crookedness, sinuosity; an instance of this.
1. lit.: cf. next, 1.
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. iii. 686 The tortuositie of the bodie and branches. 1658 Phillips, Tortuosity,..a winding, or crooking in and out. 1793 R. Mylne Rep. Thames 40 The crookedness or tortuosity of its course. 1851 Landor Popery xiv. 42 A thread which has long been twisted carries with it when untwisted the tortuosity of its entanglement. 1887 Proc. R. Geog. Soc. Apr. 253 The extreme tortuosity of the river Yang-tsze. |
b. Geom.: see quot. 1867, and cf. next, 1 c.
| 1867 Thomson & Tait Nat. Phil. I. i. §7 There are not two curvatures, but only a curvature..of which the plane is continuously changing... The course of such a curve is, in common language, well called ‘tortuous’; and the measure of the corresponding property is conveniently called Tortuosity. 1898 A. N. Whitehead Univ. Algebra I. 131 A curve locus of any order of tortuosity. |
2. fig. Mental or moral crookedness: cf. next, 2.
| 1621 T. Granger Comm. on Eccl. ii. 14. 63 Hee discerneth the vprightnesse of godlinesse, and the tortuosity of wickednesse. 1767 A. Campbell Lexiph. (1774) 62 To convict him of the tortuosity of his imaginary rectitude. 1818 Byron Juan i. ccviii, Led by some tortuosity of mind. 1851 Fraser's Mag. XLIV. 336 The charge of deliberate tortuosity of action and double-dealing. |
3. with a and pl. An instance of this, or something that exemplifies it; a twisted or crooked object, a twist, turn, winding. a. lit.: cf. 1.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. v. v. 239 That tortuosity or complicated nodosity we usually call the Navell. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xvii. (1856) 131 The linear distance, including tortuosities, is but three hundred miles. |
b. fig.: cf. 2.
| 1677 Gale Crt. Gentiles II. iv. 109 Sin is said to be a Tortuositie or wresting of the Law. 1751 Johnson Rambler No. 122 ¶3 The tortuosities of imaginary rectitude. 1837 Carlyle Misc., Mirabeau (1840) V. 139 The strangest of styles..distracted into tortuosities, dislocations. 1856 Doran Knts. & their Days viii. 126 In tracing the tortuosities of this chivalric romance. |