What does tortuous mean?
Word: Tortuous
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Tortuous means full of twists and turns, like a winding mountain road. It can also describe something that is long and too complicated.
Synonyms: winding, twisting, zigzag, complicated
Antonyms: straight, direct, simple
How do you spell tortuous?
Syllables: tor - tu - ous
Tricky part: Do not mix it up with torturous, a different word with an extra r after the second t. Check which of the two a sentence needs.
Watch out for: tortous, torteous, torchuous
Memory tip: Tap out tor-tu-ous on your desk: three beats, and no extra r slips in after the second t.
Tortuous in a sentence
Example 1: The bus took a tortuous route through the hills to reach Munnar.
Example 2: The tortuous instructions for the new game took us an hour to understand.
Example 3: A tortuous river winds across the plain in loops and bends.
Fun Fact
Tortuous comes from the Latin torquere, 'to twist'. Torque, the twisting force that turns a wheel or a spanner, comes from the same verb.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Twins
Read both sentences. In which sentence is the word used correctly?
1. The cyclists struggled up a tortuous track with a hairpin bend every few hundred metres. 2. The tortuous pain in his tooth kept him awake all night.
a) neither
b) only 1
c) both
d) only 2
Show answer
b) only 1. Pain that tortures you is torturous; tortuous means winding.
Spellacadabra
Choose the correct option to make a meaningful word:
tortu___
a) ious
b) eous
c) os
d) ous
Show answer
d) ous. After tortu comes plain -ous, the ending of famous and nervous.
Sound Check
In which word is 'tu' pronounced differently?
a) virtue
b) tortuous
c) actual
d) tulip
Show answer
d) tulip. In tulip, tu says 'tyoo'; in the others it says 'choo'.
Word Tally
You get 2 marks for each correctly spelt word in the list. What is the total score?
tortuous, meandring, crooked, spirral, hairpin
a) 6
b) 8
c) 4
d) 10
Show answer
a) 6. Meandering keeps the e of meander and spiral has one r, so three words score.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which route is most likely to be tortuous?
a) a flat running track around a field
b) a short corridor in a school
c) a narrow lane up a steep, rocky hill
d) a straight new highway across a plain
Show answer
c) a narrow lane up a steep, rocky hill
2. The rules of the new board game were tortuous. Players probably found them ___.
a) easy to learn
b) very short
c) hard to follow
d) fun to read
Show answer
c) hard to follow
