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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

... straightforward travelling so difficult in this region. Like them, they commenced to think advance impossible, and to speak of turning back. Passages had to be cut through the thick brushwood for their pack horses, circuitous roads found around steeps too precipitous to scale, and the purpose of the journey seemed hopelessly lost. They had succeeded in crossing the first outwork of the mountains, but the Main Range had yet to be won. At length they fortunately ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... Mark turned from the little black, to realise the fact that the three men whom they had left must have taken a circuitous course under the pigmy's guidance, cut them off by the scattered stones where they were resting, and were now coming straight ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... leading him to the door, placed him on the back of a swift steed, while they mounted others, with a view to accompany him. Setting off at a swift pace, they made a circuit of the tower in which he had been confined, and continuing the same circuitous route round and round the castle for a period of two or three hours, they stopped at the very door of his cell from which they had started. They then set him down upon the ground, and again mounting their horses, took ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... canon to Grand View Point and back is equally delightful. Looking across a bend in the canon from Grand View Point to Bissell's Point the distance seems to be scarcely more than a stone's throw, yet it is fully half the distance of the circuitous ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... eastward; and the Confederates, well concentrated and in hand, pushed forward in pursuit; A.P. Hill, with Longstreet on his right, moving on Gaines' Mill, while Jackson, supported by D.H. Hill, and with Stuart covering his left, marched by a more circuitous route to Old Cold Harbour. Near Walnut Grove Church Jackson met the Commander-in-Chief, and it is recorded that the staff officers of the Valley army, noting the eagerness displayed by General Lee's suite to get a glimpse of Stonewall, then for ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... Croix we directed our steps towards St. Michel, whose giant tower had attracted us on our way, but, deterred by the extraordinary filthiness and closeness of the nearest streets leading to it, we chose a very circuitous route, outside the former enclosure of the town; and, by this means, came unexpectedly on a large building of very imposing appearance, which we found was the Abattoir: we did not care to linger long near this place, but escaped, as soon as we could, from the droves of bullocks which we met ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... citizens of Springfield a very brief farewell, so solemn as to sound ominous in the ears of those who know what afterward occurred. It was arranged that he should stop at various points upon the somewhat circuitous route which had been laid out, and that he should arrive in Washington on Saturday, February 23. The programme, was pursued accurately till near the close; he made, of course, many speeches, but none added anything to what was already ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... put the ship in good condition. After I had exchanged, with great advantage, the wares I had on board for others, I hired a crew, richly rewarded my friend Muley, and set sail for my fatherland. I took a circuitous route, in the course of which I landed at several islands and countries, to bring my goods to market. The Prophet blessed my undertaking. After several years I ran into Balsora, twice as rich as the dying Captain had made me. My fellow-citizens were amazed at my wealth ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... turquoise, over which were flung bright, silken, cloudy scarves. As they ascended, the character of the river changed; the trees disappeared, giving place to wide, flat meadows of blue grass as high as a man's waist; the current slackened, and its course became more circuitous. Along the shores, steep cut-banks alternated with muddy shoals; and a new set of problems ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... calamity women in general, not menstruous women only, are forbidden to enter the cattle enclosure; and more than that, they may not use the ordinary paths in entering the village or in passing from one hut to another. They are obliged to make circuitous tracks at the back of the huts in order to avoid the ground in the middle of the village where the cattle stand or lie down. These women's tracks may be seen at every Caffre village. Among the Baganda, in like manner, no menstruous woman might drink milk or come into contact with any milk-vessel; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... now sufficient confidence in its efficiency to risk a battle in a comparatively level country. Numerically, the Carlists were superior to their opponents, but in artillery, and especially in cavalry, the Christinos had the advantage. From various garrison towns, through which he had passed in his circuitous route from Bilboa to Larraga, the Christino commander had collected reinforcements, and an imposing number of squadrons, including several of lancers and dragoons of the royal guard, formed part of the force now ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... realized that there was no need for all this haste. After twenty-five years, and a loitering, circuitous journey home—six weeks to the day since he had said good-by to India—this last-minute rush was, to say the least, illogical, particularly as there was no one in London waiting for him; no one who was even aware of his arrival. Indeed, it ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... be a circuitous route to Shepperton, where Mr. Gilfil had been for several months inducted as vicar. This small living had been given him through the interest of an old friend who had some claim on the gratitude of the Oldinport family; and it was ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... lessening his air of dignity. Indeed, it embodied and acknowledged serious mode of docilizing a people: how much real attachment between the conqueror and conquered must follow this system we leave the reader to contemplate. The honorable Mr. John, notwithstanding, had a very circuitous way of confessing the fact of having taken into his family, by this arbitrary system of wedlock, no end of people; still he accused Jonathan of using his soft-sawder for the ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... in despair. There was a tradition in the school that the feat had once been accomplished by an adventurous and active boy, but Wright at any rate found it hopeless for himself. The only other way to reach the glen was by a circuitous route which led to the entrance of the narrow gorge, along the sides of which it was possible to make way with difficulty down the bank of the river to the place where it met the sea. But this would have taken him an hour and a half, and was far from easy when ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... brought me by a circuitous route, and ten minutes late, to the end of Fetter Lane, where, exchanging my rather abstracted air for the alert manner of a busy practitioner, I strode forward briskly and darted into the surgery ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... an irregular drainage is established, the water seeks the easiest road. A side canyon is formed, draining a certain area. Another is formed elsewhere, and another, and so on till all drainage is through these tributaries and away from the brink, by more or less circuitous channels to the main stream. This backward drainage leaves the immediate brink, or "rim," till the last, in its work of erosion and corrasion, and the rim consequently is left higher than the region away from it. This effect of a backward drainage is ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... After much circuitous wandering I came to the dwelling of the brother of my Clausthal friend. Here I stayed all night and experienced ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... devised render him anything else than what he is. The very attempt to do it would inevitably introduce a confusion, if possible, more horrid than the present. There is no way to make a connection between the original constituent and the representative, but by the circuitous means which may lead the candidate to apply in the first instance to the primary electors, in order that by their authoritative instructions (and something more perhaps) these primary electors may force the two succeeding bodies of electors ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... exaggerated accounts of the difficulties to be surmounted, when the commander in chief had resolved on forcing the passage of the Sound, represented the enterprise as more practicable, and less hazardous, by the circuitous passage of the Great Belt. Though Lord Nelson's mind could not be thus induced to fluctuate, and was decidedly for the immediate passage of the Sound, when the Great Belt appeared to be preferred—"Let us, then, go by the Great Belt!" said the hero. Impatient ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... but the next minute Malcolm added, "Will you excuse my leaving you, I see some old friends of mine on their way to the Pool, and they will expect me to join them;" but if Malcolm intended to do so, he chose a most circuitous route. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... times when the gate was opened endeavoured, with the lamb at her heels, to make her way through. He each time drove her back. She at length turned round, and appeared to be going the way she came. She had, however, not abandoned her intention, for she either discovered a more circuitous road to the south side of the gate, or made her way through; for on a Sabbath morning early in June she arrived at the farm where she had been bred,—having been nine days ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... but took to flight at once. He climbed by the angles of the terraces, and saw the diligence far below tugging up the circuitous road. He ran at full speed; no human being was abroad besides, but yet there were other footfalls in the snow, other sounds, as of a man breathing hard and pursued upon the lonely mountain. The fugitive turned—once, twice, thrice; he laughed aloud, and shook his clenched hand at the ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... tinged with a vivid colour at the mention of those she had lost. When led out to execution, she was dressed in white; she had cut off her hair with her own hands. Placed in a tumbrel, with her arms tied behind her, she was taken by a circuitous route to the Place de la Revolution, and she ascended the scaffold with a firm and dignified step, as if she had been about to take her place on a throne by the side of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... rather to his gladness at having performed the last of his social duties than to any disturbance of mind. All night he lay planning what he should do,—how he might reach his place in the mountains by a circuitous route, leaving the general impression that he was abroad—and how, when at last he had got to Saracinesca unobserved, he would revel in the solitude and in the thought of being within half a day's journey of Corona ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... best, the wisest, nay, the only thing that now could be done. Mackinaw was gone, as well as Chicago, and Detroit must be reached by crossing the peninsula, instead of taking the easier but far more circuitous route of the lakes. Gershom was easily enough persuaded into the belief of the feasibility, as well as of the necessity, of this deviation from his original road, and he soon agreed ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... By a circuitous route, we are now arrived at the subject of our ballad; for, to the tragical duel of Stuart and Wharton, and to other instances of bloody combats and brawls betwixt the two nations, is imputed James's firmness in the case ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... poor Mr. Kemp's seeds, especially as I believed, from his statements and the appearance of the seeds, that they did germinate, and I further have no doubt that their antiquity must be immense. I am sorry also for the trouble you have had. I heard the other day through a circuitous course how you are astonishing all the clodhoppers in your whole part of the county: and [what is] far more wonderful, as it was remarked to me, that you had not, in doing this, aroused the envy of all the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... had some conversation with Boro, the Sheikh of Aghadez, about the country and localities of Aheer,—a Saharan kingdom never yet explored, and which we intend to traverse on our circuitous route across the desert. It appears that Aheer is the general name of the whole cluster of towns and districts; that Aghadez is the medineh, or city; and that Asouty is a town on the line of the caravan ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... "Cotton-tail rabbit!" while Henry, weeping, set out for home by a circuitous and unfrequented road. Let us hope, if there was punishment for this mishap, that it ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... back, letting it drop gently upon the hovel floor without the slightest acceleration in his breathing. For five minutes he played with the knob, like a huge monkey, then grinned, rubbed his chest and bull-neck with straw, and padded off again down the circuitous streets at ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... the Sophonisbe of Trissino, in good confidence of its classic form. Whoever is acquainted with the procedure of true genius, how it is impelled by an almost unconscious and immediate contemplation of great and important truths, and in no wise by convictions obtained mediately, and by circuitous deductions, will be on that ground alone extremely suspicious of all activity in art which originates in an abstract theory. But Corneille did not, like an antiquary, execute his dramas as so many learned school exercises, on the model of the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... he again finds houses of a deep red on crossing the Spey, and houses of a warm yellow tint on reaching Elgin,—geologically the Cupar-Fife of the north. And the story that the colored buildings tell him is, that he has been passing, though by a somewhat circuitous route of a hundred and fifty miles, over an anticlinal geological section,—down in the scale till he reached Aberdeen and had gone a little beyond it, and then up again, until at Elgin he arrives at ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... from Harbury parsonage, feeling that there he had gained a new interest to make life and life's duties more sacred. He thought with tenderness of his home—of his wife, and of his "little Olive;" and then, travelling by a rather circuitous route, his ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... gloss is required, it is carried to the super calendering mill, where it is steamed and subjected to a long and circuitous journey up and down tall stands of calenders upon calenders. The paper is cut by machines having long, winding knives which revolve slowly and cut, on the scissors principle—no two points of the blade bearing on the paper with equal pressure at once. Girls pack the sheets on the tables as they ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... some distance in his circuitous return when he became aware of the sound of voices that seemed to be drawing closer to him as he came toward the speakers. He stopped and stood listening, and instantly, as he stopped, the voices stopped also. He crouched ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... Or again, as we deal with some huge structure of many parts and sides, the mind goes round about it, noting down, first one thing, then another, as it best may, and viewing it under different aspects, by way of making progress towards mastering the whole. So by degrees and by circuitous advances does it rise aloft and subject to itself a knowledge of that universe into which it has ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... their lives have been accustomed to fields of wheat, oats and corn the almost interminable rows of beets, beans, sweet potatoes and melons are very interesting. Proceeding onward through this highly cultivated section by a somewhat circuitous route, there was gradually entered as day merged into night, a wild, sparsely cultivated region which contrasted strangely with the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... senses the shouts and outcries above him had ceased. He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached by a circuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, that if he could only reach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily descend to the stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountain hidden in a growth of hazel-brush. He bound up his wounded leg, and dragged himself ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... the other, nodding his head. Then with outspread hand he pointed before them and made a semicircular sweep to indicate that he was leading them for some reason by a circuitous route. ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... capillary, captious, cardinal, carnal, carnivorous, castigate, cataclysm, catastrophe, category, causality, cavernous, celebrity, celibacy, censorious, ceramics, cerebration, certitude, cessation, charlatan, chimerical, chronology, circuitous, circumlocution, citation, clandestine, clarify, clemency, coadjutor, coagulate, coalesce, coercion, cogency, cognizant, cohesion, coincidence, collusion, colossal, comatose, combustible, commendatory, commensurate, commiserate, communal, compatibility, compendium, complaisant, comport, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... was. They had threshed continental politics, engineering, art and the relative crafts, precious stones, astronomy and the applied sciences, music, horses, and geology, with long pauses in between. Both knew instinctively that this learned discourse was but a makeshift, a circuitous route past danger-points. "Have you ever heard of telling ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... vessels are obliged to slip and run for their lives on the first sign of a gale; and late as it was in the season, we got up our slip-rope and gear, though we meant to stay only twenty-four hours. We pulled the agent ashore, and were ordered to wait for him, while he took a circuitous way round the hill to the Mission, which was hidden behind it. We were glad of the opportunity to examine this singular place, and hauling the boat up, and making her well fast, took different directions up and down the beach, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... himself, but who are widely scattered in the world: he wishes to knit anew his connections with his oldest friends, to continue those recently formed, and to win other friends among the rising generation for the remaining course of his life. He wishes to spare the young those circuitous paths, on which he himself had ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... charger, Don Severiano conducts us by a circuitous path up an exceedingly steep hill. The trees are tall and ponderous; the leaves are, for the most part, gigantic and easy to count; the fruits are of the biggest; the mountain tops are inaccessible; and ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... added the charm of foliage to the brilliant colours of the rocks and the sheen of falling water, here and there lost in the most profound shadows. Beaman made a number of views while the rest of the men climbed for various purposes. Steward, Clem, and I by a circuitous route arrived at a point high up on Leaping Brook where the scene was beyond description. To save trouble on the return we descended the brook as it was easy to slide down places that could not be climbed. In this ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... alternatives offered themselves. The advance might be made through Weenen and across the Tugela some distance below Colenso, and thence to Elandslaagte, where the Boer line of communication with the Transvaal might be cut; but to Ladysmith this was a circuitous route. It also would necessitate the traversing of a rough bush country, into which Buller was reluctant to throw raw troops just off the transports who had not yet heard ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... world!"—that, on the other hand, was what Socrates had said, or seemed to say; though in truth he too meant only to teach them how by a more circuitous but surer way to [101] possess themselves of it. And youth, naturally curious and for the most part generous, willing to undergo much for the mere promise of some good thing it can scarcely even imagine, had been ready ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... Loch Lomond is so steep and woody that before the formation of roads, the Highlanders found it impossible to pass that way. The way to Argyleshire, therefore, ran along the vale of Fruin in a circuitous direction to the head of Loch Long, and again turned eastward towards Loch Lomond. In the middle of the glen the Macgregors, who were peacefully returning home, were attacked by the Colquhouns. The assailants were four to one; but the valour of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... order. The party proceeded leisurely, travelling more by night than by day, diminishing gradually in number till, at the entrance of a broad and desolate plain, only four remained with the cart. Over this plain they hastened, then wound through a circuitous path concealed in prickly brushwood, and paused before a huge, misshapen crag, seemingly half buried in the earth: in this a door, formed of one solid stone, flew back at their touch; the coffin, taken with reverence from the cart, was borne on their ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... moving in the same circuitous track, forms, according to Mr. Maury, to whose scientific labors the commercial world is deeply indebted, an IMMENSE WHIRLPOOL, whose circuit embraces the whole North Atlantic Ocean. In the centre of the whirl is a quiet spot, equal in extent of area to the whole Mississippi ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... since been understood that they were intentionally misled, and taken by a circuitous route to prevent their seeing a particular kampong of some consideration at the back of Tappanuli, or for some other interested object. Near the latter place, on the main, Mr. John Marsden, who went thither to be present at the funeral of one of their ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... to the left, fifty paces straight ahead, and he would have found himself at Eliphalet's front gate—in all, a matter of half a mile. But he preferred to descend upon the premises from an unexpected angle. So he approached by a far, circuitous way and arrived at the gate after traversing something like three miles of wood and pasture-land, stealthily following the stake-and-rider fences in order to screen his movements. He was well aware that Mr. Loop did not own a dog, on account ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... spears. Moreover, a man crept over to the wall from the Persian camp with tidings that the path had been betrayed, that the enemy were climbing it, and would come down beyond the Eastern Gate. Still, the way was rugged and circuitous, the Persians would hardly descend before midday, and there was ample time for the Greeks to escape before they could thus be shut ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... through all opposing undergrowth. When a brief halt was called at noon the Mayorunas, who seemed to know exactly where they were despite the fact that they had never before followed this straight course, informed Lourenco that much circuitous traveling had already been saved, and that by tramping hard until sundown they might succeed in reaching the tribal maloca that night. But McKay vetoed the idea of ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... been thinking all the evening how she would approach the subject with him, and then at last his leave-taking had startled away all her circuitous phrases and left her only the crudest words at her command to ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... reign of Sujin, 33 B.C. when an envoy from Kara arrived at the Mizugaki Court, praying that a Japanese general might be sent to compose a quarrel which had long raged between Kara and Shiragi, and to take the former under Japan's protection. It appears that this envoy had travelled by a very circuitous route. He originally made the port of Anato (modern Nagato), but Prince Itsutsu, who ruled there, claimed to be the sole monarch of Japan and refused to allow the envoy to proceed, so that the latter had to travel north and enter Japan ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... us from Buree. I proceeded with the light carts, guided by a very young native boy, not more than ten years old, who had come with the party from Kerr's station, and who, being a native of the lower Bogan, could tell us where water was likely to be found. Our route was rather circuitous, chiefly to avoid a thick scrub of CALLITRIS and other trees, which, having been recently burnt, presented spikes so thickly set together, that any way round them seemed preferable to going through. We reached plains, and came upon an old track of the squatters. The grass ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... not a pleasant one. It turns on an abstruse maxim of law, which makes it necessary for us to take a very circuitous mode of doing a very plain thing. The necessity of it is forced upon us by our lawyers, whom we could not otherwise have satisfied, with regard to the second proposition which we have voted. I am indeed convinced, that, in strict law, they are ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... decided to adopt a circuitous course, steering between the impossibilities, yet bringing in all the desired effects. The drama was to open with the wolf-hunt. Then the scene was to change; Putnam, peacefully engaged in ploughing, was to hear the glorious news and depart instantly for Bunker Hill. The battle was to rage fiercely ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... had been a circuitous one, but she had kept along the edge of the wood, so that now, as she stopped, she found herself under the shadow of the trees, and immediately opposite the portico of Dalton Hall, between which and herself lay the ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... room. The padrino denied all weariness, maintaining that the enjoyable evening had rested him, but reluctantly allowed himself to be shown to his apartment. No sooner were the good-nights spoken, than the old ranchero returned, and, snapping his fingers for attention, motioned me to follow. By a circuitous route we reached the jacal of Tiburcio. The old couple had not yet retired, and Juana blushingly admitted us. Uncle Lance jollied the old people like a robust, healthy son amusing his elders. We took seats as before around the small table, and Uncle Lance scattered ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... time Lorraine had bullied and cajoled him into making a somewhat circuitous route to the road, where he finally appeared some distance above the point of his descent, Brit was there, hitching the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... she had discovered it had Ruth touched or opened the mission Bible; but to-night (the same upon which the wonderful manuscripts started on their long and circuitous voyage to America) she was inexplicably drawn to it. In all these weeks she had not once knelt to pray. Why should she? she asked rebelliously. God had never answered any of her prayers. But this time she wanted nothing for herself: she wanted something for Hoddy—success. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... precipices, and on the declivities of the mountains, to roll down upon the heads of their enemies. By these and every other means they attempted to stop Alexander's passage. But he had contrived to send detachments around by circuitous and precipitous paths, which even the mountaineers had deemed impracticable, and thus attack his enemies suddenly and unexpectedly from above their own positions. As usual, his plan succeeded. The mountaineers were driven away, and the conqueror advanced toward ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... to be able to qualify by calling to itself all substances necessary to produce gall. Its communications with all parts of the body is direct, circuitous, universal and absolute. If pure it produces healthy gall and other substances, and in fact when healthy itself all other fluids are considered to be pure, at which time we are supposed to enjoy good health and universal ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... the mean time, in order to reach their destination, found it necessary, unless they should take a long and circuitous route, to cross one of those lofty peaks for which the Rocky Mountains are so famous. The ascent was however commenced and successfully accomplished; but, not without labor and an occasional resting-place being sought for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... a curious discussion of the difference between intuition and sagacity; one being immediate in its effect, the other requiring a circuitous process; one he observed was the eye of the mind, the other the nose of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... colonies. It was their misfortune that, though they stood in need of vast quantities of British manufactures, their country produced very little that afforded a direct remittance to pay for them. They were therefore under the necessity of seeking elsewhere a market for their produce, and, by a circuitous route, acquiring the means of supporting their credit with the mother country. This they had found by trading with the Spanish and French colonies in their neighbourhood. From them they acquired gold, silver, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... accompanied them they recognized the peasant who had spoken to the muleteer when he refused to accept their first offer, and they had no doubt that he had arranged with the man to lead them to a certain spot, to which he had proceeded direct, while their guide had conducted them by a circuitous route. ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... may know that the appearance is due to the bending of the rays of light. Similarly, an echo always sounds as though it came from some object in the direction in which the air-waves finally travel to the ear, though we are perfectly sure that these undulations have taken a circuitous course. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the deeply organized tendency to mistake the direction of the visible or audible object in these cases has from remote ages been made use of as a means of popular delusion. Thus, we are told by Sir D. Brewster, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foil'd circuitous wanderer:—till at last The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge and ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... was a little back-room, used as a private tap-room, which had a separate entrance by a dark and crooked alley, which communicated with Fleet Street, after a circuitous passage through several by-lanes and courts. This retired temple of Bacchus had also a connexion with Benjamin's more public shop by a long and narrow entrance, conducting to the secret premises in which a few old topers used to take their morning ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... sat there meditating, while the mule cropped the herbage at his side, he observed two riders a considerable way down the circuitous road by which he had ascended—a man ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... guarantee that the savages would not return; so, instead of turning with the trappers to join in the pursuit, he favoured them with a concluding and a peculiarly monstrous howl, and then rode quietly away by a circuitous route to his ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... again urged the peddler to dismount, and to plunge into the woods; but his request was promptly refused. The two roads, before mentioned, met at very sharp angles at a short distance from the turn, and both were circuitous, so that but little of either could be seen at a time. The peddler took the one which led to the left, but held it only a moment, for, on reaching a partial opening in the thicket, he darted across into the right-hand ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... "Desmond" as synonymous. Again, he falls into the same mistake by assuming "Crook, Hook Point, or The Crook," to be synonyms. I never heard that Henry II. landed at Hook Point, which is in the county of Wexford, and from which a land journey to Waterford would be very circuitous. At Crook, however, on the opposite side of Waterford Harbour, and within the shelter of Creden Head, he is said to have done so; and as that point answers pretty exactly to the Crock of Hoveden, why assume some indefinite point of the "Kingdom of Cork" as the locality, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various

... which made him appear like a City Hall Park hobo, with slouch hat and long ulster, such as market men wear loosely belted like great aprons. Under these coverings he dared to go as far as Fulton Market about three times a week, taking the most circuitous route around the lower edge of New York, via the slow but sure Belt Line horse car along West and South streets. To be sure, he put in most of his time traveling, but the coroner did not catch him, and this fact demonstrated the cleverness ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his surprise it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he had driven up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted because of the enormous length of the route in proportion to that of the pedestrian's path down the open hillside, and the consequent increase of labour for ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... the main river. Little short of a miracle had been performed. The ditch was growing wider and deeper every moment and judging from the enormous flow of water, it would not be long before the river deserted its circuitous route in favor of ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... farmer offered to guide Zagonyi by a circuitous route to the rear of the Rebel position, and under his guidance he left the main road about five miles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... of Long Island. General Putnam, with about nine thousand men, held a fort at Brooklyn and defences on a range of hills south of the city. The English advanced in three divisions. Two of these attacked the defences in front, while General Clinton, by a circuitous route, gained the rear. The patriots were fighting gallantly, when, to their dismay, they heard firing behind them. They attempted to escape, but it was too late. Out of five thousand Americans engaged, two thousand ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... my parentage, been led to study everything belonging to their history with more interest than any other subject. It turns out that I have been making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little." He was anxious less the time should be consumed before this circuitous course of talk could lead them back to the topic he most cared about. Age does not easily distinguish between what it needs to express and what youth needs to know-distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and keenly active as Joseph ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... secretary. So the two friends started away for the new field, six hundred miles distant. They had a regular cavalcade of carriages and horsemen, for Colonna was a very rich man and everything was his for the asking. They traveled by a circuitous route, so as to visit many schools, monasteries and towns on the way. Everywhere ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... twenty-five wagons, and at least two hundred prisoners. Moving boldly northward, he struck the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, burning the bridge across the Accotink Run, and from Burke's Station he swung around Fairfax Court House, and returned, by long, circuitous route, into their ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... the Indians were this winter encamped on the banks of the River Exploits, and observed Captain B.'s party passing up the river on the ice. They retired from their encampments in consequence; and, some weeks afterwards, went by a circuitous route to the lake, to ascertain what the party had been doing there. They found Mary March's body, and removed it from where Captain B. had left it to where it now lies, by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various

... advanced, with the men detailed for the purpose, towards the hillock. By taking a circuitous route, he avoided the observation of the rebels behind the house, and reached the other side of the knoll, where, behind the friendly shelter of a clump of bushes, he was enabled to survey the ground. Not more than a quarter of a mile distant he discovered the rebel breastworks. It was ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... frontiers of Kaarta as was consistent with safety. The king, finding he was resolved to proceed, told him that one route, though not wholly free from danger, still remained, which was first to go into the Moorish kingdom of Luda-mar, and thence by a circuitous route to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar. He then inquired of Mr. Park how he had been treated since he left the Gambia, and jocularly asked him how many slaves he expected to take home with him ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... that you are silent. No human creature must know that I am living.' I saw by the kindling of her eye at the sight of the gold that I was safe, and when the night shadows were falling I stole from her cabin, and taking a circuitous route to avoid observation, I reached the midway station in time for ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes

... said he, "if you will come and assist me in my duties; for which purpose you and your sons must acquire the language of these islanders. We are much nearer your island than you think, for you took a very circuitous course, and Parabery, who knows it, declares it is only a day's voyage with a fair wind. And, moreover, he tells me, that he is so much delighted with you and your sons, that he cannot part with you, and wishes me to obtain your permission to accompany you, and remain with ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... under expectation of your soon following them. They had well under expectation of our soon following them. They had not proceeded far before their scouts perceived the outposts of the English, which surrounded Cartlane Craigs; and to avoid this danger, they took a circuitous path, in hopes of finding some at the western side of the craigs. Kenneth knew the abbot; and entering it under covert of the night, obtained permission for his men to rest there. The youth, now their companion, was a student in ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... ice, they resumed their journey, with their sledges laden with venison. Champlain went on with them from village to village, until he reached the one in which he had left Brother Le Caron. When spring came, the Frenchmen traveled homeward by the same circuitous route by which they had come, by the way of Lake Huron and the ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson

... formerly so distant from Edinburgh and Glasgow, can now be reached in fourteen hours by one who leaves the latter city at 5.40 A.M. The old route was very tiresome and circuitous: the traveller had to proceed to Inverness, take the Dingwall and Skye line to Strome Ferry, and then sail over the Minch to Stornoway. The opening up of the West Highlands by the railway to Mallaig has changed all that. At Mallaig pier, when you leave the train, you find ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... Mazarin, who had no wish to see him at the conferences, declined to give him a passport; but he risked the journey incognito, with Ormond, the Earl of Bristol, and one or two other attendants, going by a long and circuitous route, and finding much amusement by the way. As they approached their destination, there was an unlucky separation of the party into two, Ormond going on ahead for inquiries and appointing a place for their reunion. But for some days Charles and the Earl of Bristol were lost. Ormond, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... Dubuque, as the boats had ceased running, a circuitous route and a night of discomfort were inevitable. Leaving the main road to Chicago at Clinton Junction, I had the pleasure of waiting at a small country inn until midnight for a freight train. This was ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... he had come, halting often and peering into shadows. By the time he arrived at the spot where he had first seen the horse and rider he had become convinced that Taggart had secreted himself until he had passed him and had then ridden over the back trail, later to return to the Arrow by a circuitous route. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... escorted with all due formality to the old Schmittheimer place in Clarendon Avenue. Recognizing the fact that first impressions are lasting, we determined that Mr. Black's first impressions of our purchase should be favorable. So we conducted him to our property by a rather circuitous route. The approach to the old Schmittheimer place from the north is by all means the most agreeable; it leads by Mr. Rink's fine colonial house and Martin Howard's new place and through an embowered avenue of weeping willows, which, out of deference to his melancholy profession, Mr. Dimmons, landscape ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... especially fond of spices and aromatics. These were used very profusely in their cookery, and formed the principal ingredients in their medicines. As, however, the price of all Indian commodities was necessarily high, so long as they were obliged to be brought to Europe by a circuitous route, and loaded with accumulated profits, it was impossible that they could be purchased, except by the more wealthy classes. The Portuguese, enabled to sell them in greater abundance, and at a much ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... thorny bush, until we at length arrived at a dense jungle of kittar—the most formidable of the hooked thorn mimosas. Here the tracks appeared to wander, some elephants having travelled straight ahead, while others had strayed to the right and left. For about two hours we travelled upon the circuitous tracks of the elephants to no purpose, when we suddenly were startled by the shrill trumpeting of one of these animals in the thick thorns, a few hundred yards to our left. The ground was so intensely hard and dry that it was impossible to distinguish the new tracks from the old, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... as full inquiry into the nature of their commerce as circumstances would admit of. I do not find that the exports from any of them, Riga excepted, are calculated for our markets, or that we can derive any advantage from them, till we engage in circuitous voyages and become their carriers. The great article of Riga is cordage of all sorts, which I am told is the best in all these countries. They export considerable quantities of hemp likewise, to say ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... past me, and come to a standstill at the turn. Still I had no thought of any danger. It never occurred to me to leave the footpath and make my way back to the "Brand," as I might well have done, by a more circuitous route. I kept on the footpath, and just as I reached the little iron gate which led into the spinney, I felt a man's arm suddenly flung around my neck, and with a jerk I was thrown almost off ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... roasted a piece of the warm flesh, covered his tracks, and before the sun was up had made twenty miles of the return journey, with half a dozen fine new slings concealed beneath his coat. He arrived at Deadborough at nightfall the day but one following, having taken a circuitous route far from the highroad. He at once made his way ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... disarmed, and then taken under an escort to within ten miles of Salamanca. Toro was entered suddenly, and a garrison of three hundred men taken by surprise, and forced to lay down their arms. The powder, bullocks, and waggons with their stores were sent, by circuitous routes, to the bridge across the Douro at Miranda, and then ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... the physician. "There is just time." So Stephen wrote to his brother, and bade him leave his wife with her parents in India, and come home quickly, if he would see his father again, for the time was short, and in those days the only way open to Maurice was the long circuitous sea-route. Maurice arrived only three days before the old man's death. He had not left his wife behind him, as Stephen suggested, for she loved her husband too dearly to be parted from him, and Maurice ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... the Place Maubert, and walked by a circuitous way to my hotel. I was sure that no one could have come after me there, as my landlord did ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... his pursuers by too wide a margin, but he had escaped. He had come by a circuitous course to this place where he hoped to find quiet under his assumed name of Maggard, nor was his choice of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... but now he could not find it. At the end of every attempt was a precipice. And the water was rising. A little girl on the shore shouted to them to follow along a ledge she pointed out, then descend between two bowlders to the ford. Precious minutes were lost in accomplishing this circuitous descent, and then they found the stepping-stones under water, and the sea-weed swishing about the slippery rocks with the incoming tide. It was a ridiculous position for lovers, or even "friends"—ridiculous because it had no element of danger except ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... itself. The French, supported by Burgoyne, the chief of the English engineers, shrank from the risk of a front attack on works supposed to be more formidable than they really were, and induced Lord Raglan to consent to a long circuitous march which would bring the armies right round Sebastopol to its more open southern side, from which, it was thought, an assault might be successfully made. This flank-march, which was one of extreme risk, was carried out safely, Menschikoff himself having left Sebastopol, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... attraction of Shanklin is the Chine. This is a natural fissure or cleft in the earth, running from the village to the sea in a circuitous direction and increasing in width and depth as it approaches the shore. It was most probably formed by the long continued running of a stream of water from the adjoining hills; this now forms a cascade at the commencement of the path which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various

... found filled with chalk, or lime, or some such substance. It is, indeed, truly wonderful, what the stomach of a Frank will digest comfortably. Their guides, also, whom you shall choose with reference to such duty, will take care to conduct the crusaders by difficult and circuitous routes; which will be doing them a real service, by inuring them to the hardships of the country and climate, which they would otherwise have to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... scruples by saying they might get out of the mess how they liked. I advised Girdelstone to go to bed and plead illness for the next few days, for he really wanted rest. At eleven o'clock that night, Monteagle and myself crossed the meadows at the back of our college, and by a circuitous route reached the grounds surrounding the museum, which were planted with rhododendrons and other shrubs. The pouring rain was, unfortunately, not favourable for our enterprise. I brought however a small box of combustibles from the University Laboratories, and a dark ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... troops. Numerous detached battles were fought; but in each of these the French troops, although suffering heavily, displayed their old courage, and either by hard fighting cut their way through obstacles, or managed by long and circuitous marches ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... behind, separated his division into two bodies, and swept round on one side himself, while the Count of Flanders did the same on the other to attack the Prince of Wales in more regular array. Taking a circuitous route, D'Alencon appeared upon a rising ground on the flank of the archers of the Black Prince, and thus, avoiding their arrows, charged down with his cavalry upon the 800 men-at-arms gathered round ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... itself sufficient to atone for any aches or weariness I may have felt. The mere fact that one may walk from Washington to Pumpkintown was a discovery I had been all these years in making. I had walked to Sligo, and to the Northwest Branch, and had made the Falls of the Potomac in a circuitous route of ten miles, coming suddenly upon the river in one of its wildest passes; but I little dreamed all the while that there, in a wrinkle (or shall I say furrow?) of the Maryland hills, almost visible from the outlook of the bronze ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... 1.—The month has opened with a very beautiful day. This morning I took a circuitous walk over our land 'estate,' winding to and fro in gulleys filled with smooth ice patches or loose sandy soil, with a twofold object. I thought I might find the remains of poor Julick—in this I was unsuccessful; ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... explained that, after his furious dash for shelter from the building, he did not believe his chances were any better than those of the man he left behind him. He started, with the intention of making his way by a circuitous course to the river, but had not gone far when he was struck by the baseness of his desertion of his friend. He, therefore, turned about with the resolve to try to do something for him, but had no more than caught sight of the structure again ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... the oidium or some malady of that sort, is a thing of the past, the spot retains many other charms ample to justify a trip to its shores by a more roundabout way than the slow and direct or costly and circuitous routes laid down by Mr. Benjamin. Teneriffe ranks close to Madeira, and the Valley of Orotava, scooped out of the flank of the famous peak, is recommended as simply perfection for sufferers from "pulmonary complaints, rheumatism or neuralgia," and beneficial even in Bright's disease. The thermometer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... however, it was decided merely to hang upon the skirts of the retreating army and avoid an engagement. Lee was aggressive, almost insulting, in counselling inaction, Washington, much embarrassed, but hesitating to ignore the decisions of the council, followed the enemy by a circuitous route, until he reached the neighbourhood of Princeton. The British were in and about Allentown. Washington called another council of war, and urged the propriety of forcing an engagement before the enemy could reach the Heights of Monmouth. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... amorous farewell still ringing in my ears I landed at Limehouse Pier, and bidding my friend good-bye betook myself by the circuitous route of Emmett and Ropemaker Streets and Church Row to that aristocratic thoroughfare known as the ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... occasion at Boston, when a band of roughs forced their way into the chapel and interrupted the service, driving some of the congregation away. He had, however, a more serious experience, from exposure to the roughness of the elements. He was riding to Boston, apparently by a somewhat circuitous route, and a violent storm arose at sea. When he was not far from the coast the sea bank gave way, the country was inundated, vessels were even carried some distance inland, Boston itself was deluged, and he might have been drowned, but that he managed to reach some high ground, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... of the armies of the Central Powers was seriously weakened. It is to be remembered that this actual fighting army of more than a million men depended for food and for ammunition supplies upon the routes from Belgium and Luxemburg by way of Mezieres and Montmedy, and the circuitous line to Brussels via St. Quentin. Had Maubeuge fallen a little earlier the situation of the Central Powers would have been less difficult, and both commissariat and ammunition problems would have ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... route; or that such a company carries goods a hundred and thirty miles in a roundabout way (on a long distance) to favour its influential shareholders, and thus ruins the secondary lines. In the United States travellers and goods are sometimes compelled to travel impossibly circuitous routes so that dollars may flow into the pocket of ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... meeting of the Portsmouth Philosophical Society. This animal has been said to extend the whole length of the boring tube; but this assertion is erroneous, since the tubes are formed by a secretion from the body of the animal, and are often many feet in length, and circuitous in their course. This was shown to be the fact, by a large piece of wood pierced in all directions. The manner in which it affects its passage, and the interior of the tubes, were also described. The assertion that the Teredo does not attack ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various

... cavalry,—besides twelve pieces of artillery,—so he says in a letter to his wife, which Buell has intercepted and Garfield has in his pocket. Three roads lead to Marshall's position: one at the east, bearing down to the river, and along its western bank; another, a circuitous one, to the west, coming in on Paint Creek, at the mouth of Jenny's Creek, on the right of the village; and a third between the others, a more direct route, but climbing a succession of almost impassable ridges. These ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... to the Churches of the Apostasy! But all the miracles, which the legends of Monk or Rabbi contain, can scarcely be put in competition, on the score of complication, inexplicableness, the absence of all intelligible use or purpose, and of circuitous self-frustration, with those that must be assumed by the maintainers of this doctrine, in order to give effect to the series of miracles, by which all the nominal composers of the Hebrew nation before the time of Ezra, of whom there are any ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... they now were to Tlascala was between 80 and 90 miles in a straight line; but as they chose a very circuitous route, by the west and north of the lakes in the vale of Mexico, before turning south-eastwards to Tlascala, their march must ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... entry to the interior; it was because of them that she had grown and flourished, with her sawmills and her ginmills, her docks, and her dives. But at the time when this story opens Alaska had developed to a point where an overland outlet by winter and a circuitous inlet, by way of Bering Sea and the crooked Yukon, in summer were no longer sufficient, There was need of a permanent route by means of which men and freight might come and go through all the year. The famous North Pass & Yukon ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... have been travelling through a very rough country for these two days past. The fact is, that our guides, having only passed here in summer, are unacquainted with the winter track. We are, therefore, evidently pursuing a circuitous course, which, with every other disadvantage, subjects us to the risk of running short of provisions,—a contingency which our reduced stock warns us to prepare for ere long. We can afford no ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... two. The sun sank lower and lower, sending farewell beams into the valleys, and shaking out gold pieces in Miss Bezac's little brown sitting-room like the Will-o'-wisps in the "Tale of tales". Through the open door her red cow might be seen returning home by a winding and circuitous path, such as cows love, and a little sparrow hopped in and out, from the doorstep, looking for "One, two, three, four", crumbs. Faith from her seat near the fire could see it all—if her eyes chose to pass Mr. Linden,—what ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... landlords—never a better than the late Lord Downshire, or the living and beloved Lord Roden. But there are too many of another state of feeling and action. There are estates in the north where the screw is never withdrawn from its circuitous and oppressive work. Tenant-right is an unfortunate and delusive affair, simply because it is invariably used to the landlord's advantage. Here we have an election in prospect, and in many counties no ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... place. They feared I would find it very lonely. No one had lived in it for a long time, and so on. It seemed to me that afterwards I understood their curious hesitation, but at the moment only regarded it as a part of the circuitous New England method of bargaining. At all events, the rent I offered finally overcame their disinclination, whatever its cause, and so I came into possession—for four months—of that silent old house, with the white lilacs, and the drowsy barns, and the old piano, and the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... looked out a route for the ponies, to avoid slippery places. It started to bliz, but was not too thick for us to see our bearings. At the top of Ski Slope the ponies were taken out of the sledges and led down a circuitous route over the rocks. The rest of us put everything we wanted on one sledge and leaving the others up there went down the slope as before. The two ponies arrived before us and were stabled ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... soon they were off indeed, speeding on to the busy wharf, scene of many a "lark" in Dan's boyish past. Here the great steamboat was awaiting them: for, although the route was longer and more circuitous, Father Regan had decided it best for his young travellers to make their ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... were preparing for the oven! Captain Duke and myself were resolved to witness this dreadful scene. We therefore kept our information as secret as possible, well knowing that if we had manifested our wishes they would have denied the whole affair. We set out, taking a circuitous route towards the village, and, being well acquainted with the road, we came upon them suddenly, and found them in the ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... eldest brother, and, bidding Noyon adieu, set out, in company with his younger brother and sister, on his way to Strasbourg. The direct road being rendered dangerous by the armies of Charles V., which had penetrated into France, he sought a circuitous ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various



Words linked to "Circuitous" :   indirect



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