The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the
side of every hill where the copsewood grew thick.
--Macaulay.
2. Fig.: Deviating from rectitude; indirect; erroneous;
deceitful.
That course became somewhat lesstortuous, when the
battle of the Boyne had cowed the spirit of the
Jakobites. --Macaulay.
3. Injurious: tortious. [Obs.]
4. (Astrol.) Oblique; -- applied to the six signs of the
zodiac (from Capricorn to Gemini) which ascend most
rapidly and obliquely. [Obs.] --Skeat.
Infortunate ascendent tortuous. --Chaucer.
--{Tor"tu*ous*ly}, adv. -- {Tor"tu*ous*ness}, n.