[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., April, 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.
