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Circuitous   /sərkjˈuɪtəs/   Listen
Circuitous

adjective
1.
Marked by obliqueness or indirection in speech or conduct.  Synonym: roundabout.  "A roundabout paragraph" , "Hear in a roundabout way that her ex-husband was marrying her best friend"
2.
Deviating from a straight course.  Synonyms: devious, roundabout.  "A long and circuitous journey by train and boat" , "A roundabout route avoided rush-hour traffic"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Circuitous" Quotes from Famous Books



... arrivals number seven of the pink Mason-bees, whom I thought that I had bewildered by a long and circuitous drive, and six of the blue Mason-bees, who came to Font-Claire by the direct route. The two proportions, forty-six and forty per cent., are almost equal; and the slight excess in favour of the insects ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... banishment), were at last fain solemnly to expel him from the University. Upon which his father discarded him from his house, vowing that he would leave his broad acres (which were not entailed) to his Nephew, and bidding him go to the Devil; whither he accordingly proceeded, but by a very leisurely and circuitous route. But the young Rogue had already made a more perilous journey than this, for he had fallen in Love with a young Madam of exceeding Beauty, and of large Fortune in her own right, the daughter of a neighbouring Baronet. And she, to her sorrow, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... went to view the natural bridge, a band of rock that connects two hills together, and beneath which a roaring stream rushes, hid entirely by the bushes and trees that grow on each side of the ravine. We descended by a circuitous footpath into the river course, and walked under the natural arch, and certainly never was any thing finer; a regular Der Freyschutz dell. The arch overhead was nearly fifty feet high, and the echo was superb, as we found, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... spirit of civil warfare. Neither would he pursue the eastern track; for in that direction, as pointing to France, his friends would most likely seek him. He therefore turned his steps toward the ports of Ayr. The road was circuitous; but it would soon enough take him from the land of his fathers—from the country he must never ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... upon Collins's use of satire in religious controversy. As we have already seen, there were complex reasons for his choice of technique. He was a naturally witty man who, sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of malice, expressed himself best through circuitous irony. In 1724, when he himself considered his oratorical practice, he argued that his matter determined his style, that the targets of his belittling wit were the "saint-errants." We can only imagine the exasperation of Collins's Anglican enemies when they found their orthodoxy thus ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins


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