circuitousin a sentence
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It's a long and circuitous journey up the mountain road.
circuitous = indirect (winding rather than straight)
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The explanation was circuitous and puzzling.
circuitous = indirect (not straightforward)
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I took a circuitous path from my first job to finally finding my current profession.
circuitous = not direct
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We took a circuitous route back to our hotel so we could see more of the city.
circuitous = indirect (not the straightest or quickest)
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I've just decided to try and loop back around, although it will require miles of travel away from the inferno and then a very circuitous route back, when...
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circuitous = indirect (longer because it is not straight)
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Horses and ponies had been sent round by circuitous paths to meet them at their appointed landing-place.
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circuitous = indirect
- As if climbing the peak alone in winter weren't challenging enough, this time he decided to up the ante even further by beginning his ascent at sea level, which entailed walking 160 hard, circuitous miles from the shore of Cook Inlet just to reach the foot of the mountain.† (source)
- That meant a pace slower and a route more circuitous than he'd imagined.† (source)
- "I see you want to," Laila said, irritated by this circuitous, playful accusation.† (source)
- Rocher led Kohler up a handicapped ramp on a circuitous route into the Apostolic Palace.† (source)
- Margo, as always, biked standing up, her arms locked as she leaned above the handlebars, her purple sneakers a circuitous blur.† (source)
- Their destination was nearby, but Eragon took a circuitous route in an effort to baffle any pursuers.† (source)
- I wasn't used to having to go to such circuitous measures, listening to your words in Jessica's mind...her mind isn't very original, and it was annoying to have to stoop to that.† (source)
show 72 more with this conextual meaning
- The ship's captain—she was Ki, tall and covered in ritual scars—let fall in an oblique, circuitous way that she and all her crew thought I'd taken Seivarden on as a charity case.† (source)
- They made their way up to the street via a circuitous maze of cells and corridors that eventually opened out into what had once been the lobby of a police station.† (source)
- I had planned the journey here to Salisbury with considerable care, avoiding almost entirely the major roads; the route might have seemed necessarily circuitous to some, but then it was one that enabled me to take in a fair number of the sights recommended by Mrs J. Symons in her excellent volumes, and I must say I was well pleased with it.† (source)
- The King's Route was wide and straight, crossing the more circuitous Sacred Way twice again before reaching the docks.† (source)
- A circuitous argument followed.† (source)
- I could not manage the circuitous trip to the embassy and still make it back to Mahtob's school by noon.† (source)
- The driver drove them past a government building and on a circuitous route through the city.† (source)
- Our ears clouded with the sound of the fountain, only a matter of yards away-directly between us and the Carriage House-we remained in shadow along the wall of the Pool House, well off the perfectly laid stone paths, electing a circuitous route through the plants, shrubs and flowers.† (source)
- Only they had chosen the West Ridge, a circuitous, brutally difficult route, littered with land mine after land mine of steep, technical pitches, which had been successfully scaled only once, twelve years earlier, by Japanese climber Eiho Otani and his Pakistani partner Nazir Sabir.† (source)
- The motorcade then took a circuitous and unfamiliar route to Marshall Square as if they were concerned we might be ambushed.† (source)
- Wherever he was being taken, he was being driven there by an extremely circuitous route.† (source)
- He finally got off a bus at Slussen, jumped on the Katarina lift up to Mosebacke, and took a circuitous route to Fiskargatan 9.† (source)
- The British circuitous supply line would encourage competition among other nations, increasing the price of British commodities in our markets.† (source)
- I'll be coming by a rather circuitous route, so I don't know how long it will take me.† (source)
- Mrs. Shortley waited until the car was out of sight and then she made her way circuitously to the mulberry tree and stood about ten feet behind the two Negroes, one an old man holding a bucket half full of calf feed and the other a yellowish boy with a short woodchuck-like head pushed into a rounded felt hat.† (source)
- He had arrived at the truth circuitously: circuitously it would have to be explained.† (source)
- We take a circuitous route back to the ten o'clock beach. (source)
- In ten minutes, the cast and crew of the next propos are making the circuitous trek to the outside.† (source)
- Since the Jackal had seen me, my route was circuitous, which left me time to think.† (source)
- Sure enough, the trail led back to the cottage by a circuitous route that stayed far clear of the Cullens' house and the wolves in the nearby woods.† (source)
- I wasn't used to having to go to such circuitous measures, listening to your words in Jessica's mind...her mind isn't very original, and it was annoying to have to stoop to that.† (source)
- But circuitous as it was, that course had reunited Roran with Eragon, who knew the location of the Ra'zac's den and had promised to help save Katrina.† (source)
- 'I have received it on no circuitous information; it has come to me direct.'† (source)
- She had no need of these circuitous substitutes.† (source)
- I am returning to it by a somewhat circuitous route.† (source)
- The children moved closer with elaborate circuitousness, edging inward in long curves.† (source)
- She judged distances critically, saw at once where the beaten route to an important centre was stupidly circuitous, and looking in a straight line through houses and lots, she said: "There'll be a street through here some day.† (source)
- The bluntness of his question ruined all hopes of leading up to the matter in any circuitous and sentimental way.† (source)
- She knew what she wanted and she went after it by the shortest route, like a man, not by the hidden and circuitous routes peculiar to women.† (source)
- In about ten minutes they returned to the house by a circuitous route, entering at the rear.† (source)
- He practised glaring and talking deep, but he circuitously hinted to Vida that when he had tried to look Harry Haydock in the eye, Harry had inquired, "What's the matter with you, Raymie?† (source)
- —but in the meanwhile, I told him of a very long, very circuitous road which Chauvelin's men would never suspect, just about the time when we are ready for him, eh, little woman?† (source)
- A clean-shaved man, with an official manner and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, called on me one day and made inquiries, at first circuitous, afterwards suavely pressing, about what he was pleased to denominate certain 'documents.'† (source)
- At ten o'clock he came away, choosing a circuitous route homeward to pass the gates of the college whose head had just sent him the note.† (source)
- Her naturally good temper had been disciplined by years of enforced compliance, since she had almost always had to attain her ends by the circuitous path of other people's; and, being naturally inclined to face unpleasant facts as soon as they presented themselves, she was not sorry to hear an impartial statement of what her folly was likely to cost, the more so as her own thoughts were still insisting on the other side of the case.† (source)
- I encountered a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but both hurried circuitously away from the advances I made them.† (source)
- It crossed Broadway from out the shadow of Twenty-sixth Street, and, in a halting, circuitous way, arrived close to the waiting figure.† (source)
- But the man who went softly, by circuitous ways, peering with caution, seeking after secrecy—that was the man who received no suspension of judgment from White Fang, and who went away abruptly, hurriedly, and without dignity.† (source)
- Their walk having been circuitous, they were still not far from the house, and in obeying his direction she only had to reach the large stone bridge across the main river and follow the road for a few yards.† (source)
- I am an extremely unhandy man (my schooling was over before the days of Slojd); but most of the requirements of a raft I met at last in some clumsy, circuitous way or other, and this time I took care of the strength.† (source)
- At eight-thirty, when night had finally fallen, she went east along Taylor to Central Avenue, then by a circuitous route made her way west again to the trysting place.† (source)
- I turned about, no longer aimless, and went—circuitously in order to avoid the busy ways, towards the back streets north of the Strand; for I remembered, though not very distinctly where, that some theatrical costumiers had shops in that district.† (source)
- He had spoken out of the side of his mouth, as if he hoped his words would reach Mrs. McKisco by a circuitous and unobtrusive route; in a minute he had shoved off into the water and his long body lay motionless toward shore.† (source)
- Despite my desire to throw my arms about their pliant forms and to draw down towards me the starry locks that crowned their fragrant heads, we would pass them by without stopping, for my parents had ceased to visit Tansonville since Swann's marriage, and, so as not to appear to be looking into his park, we would, instead of taking the road which ran beside its boundary and then climbed straight up to the open fields, choose another way, which led in the same direction, but circuitously, and brought us out rather too far from home.† (source)
- Mrs. Fisher was not a woman who talked of herself without cause, and the practice of direct speech, far from precluding in her an occasional resort to circuitous methods, served rather, at crucial moments, the purpose of the juggler's chatter while he shifts the contents of his sleeves.† (source)
- The distance was too long for a walk, but Clare felt such a strong desire for isolation that at first he would neither hire a conveyance nor go to a circuitous line of railway by which he might eventually reach the place.† (source)
- The spirits of the scout, and the astonishing success of the chase, in which a circuitous distance of more than forty miles had been passed, did not fail to impart a portion of hope to the whole party.† (source)
- By taking a circuitous route, and, as it appeared to her, very unreasonable direction to the knoll, they were soon beyond her eye; and for some minutes longer she remained without sight or sound of any companion.† (source)
- "Do you know why he followed you?" began Gringoire again, seeking to return to his question by a circuitous route.† (source)
- This much, Jerry, with his head becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood there before him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak.† (source)
- Bees and butterflies in the cornfields at the top of the town, who desired to get to the meads at the bottom, took no circuitous course, but flew straight down High Street without any apparent consciousness that they were traversing strange latitudes.† (source)
- 'Having written on her death-bed a letter or confession to you, about this very boy, which, as it was not directed otherwise than in your name, only reached you, and that by a circuitous course, a few days since?'† (source)
- But, caution being necessary in communicating with him — for there was a greater danger every moment of his being suspected now, and nobody could be sure at heart but that Mr. Bounderby himself, in a bullying vein of public zeal, might play a Roman part — it was consented that Sissy and Louisa should repair to the place in question, by a circuitous course, alone; and that the unhappy father, setting forth in an opposite direction, should get round to the same bourne by another and wider route.† (source)
- —Scotts Burgher While Richard and Monsieur Le Quoi, attended by Benjamin, proceeded to the academy by a foot-path through the snow, the judge, his daughter, the divine, and the Major took a more circuitous route to the same place by the streets of the village.† (source)
- In addition to the upward path through the heath to Rainbarrow and Mistover, there was a road which branched from the highway a short distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a circuitous and easy incline.† (source)
- I went circuitously to Miss Havisham's by all the back ways, and rang at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my gloves.† (source)
- Though her mode of doing everything was peculiarly meandering and circuitous, and without any sort of calculation as to time and place,—though her kitchen generally looked as if it had been arranged by a hurricane blowing through it, and she had about as many places for each cooking utensil as there were days in the year,—yet, if one would have patience to wait her own good time, up would come her dinner in perfect order, and in a style of preparation with which an epicure could find no fault.† (source)
- Meanwhile Giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at length found himself at the door of his lodgings.† (source)
- At one moment he thought, "I will write a letter: I prefer that to any circuitous talk;" at another he thought, "No; if I were talking to him, I could make a retreat before any signs of disinclination."† (source)
- The fifteen hundred remaining feet took us five hours to clear; the circuitous route, the diagonal and the counter marches, must have measured at least three leagues.† (source)
- He acted upon this impulse without delay, and choosing the least frequented roads began his journey back, resolved to lie concealed within a short distance of the metropolis, and, entering it at dusk by a circuitous route, to proceed straight to that part of it which he had fixed on for his destination.† (source)
- The wheelings, the charges, the advances, and the circuitous retreats, were like the flights of circling swallows.† (source)
- 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 horse.† (source)
- It was the frequency of these circuitous movements that, by confining the action to so small a compass, enabled the youth to keep near his companions.† (source)
- "We shall have good reasons for our thanksgiving to night, on more accounts than one," The horses soon reached a point where they seemed to know by instinct that the journey was nearly ended, and, bearing on the bits as they tossed their heads, they rapidly drew the sleigh over the level land which lay on the top of the mountain, and soon came to the point where the road descended suddenly, but circuitously, into the valley.† (source)
- And I did not dare to take too circuitous a route; I might easily lose my way in the wild growth or be overtaken by Jamie and Dougal, returning.† (source)
- The imprevidibility of the future: once in the summer of 1898 he (Bloom) had marked a florin (2/-) with three notches on the milled edge and tendered it m payment of an account due to and received by J. and T. Davy, family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand Canal, for circulation on the waters of civic finance, for possible, circuitous or direct, return.† (source)
- Thus, by a circuitous route, verbs originally strong, and for many centuries hovering between the two conjugations, have eventually become strong again.† (source)
- The words of Anselmo struck Lothario with astonishment, unable as he was to conjecture the purport of such a lengthy preamble; and though be strove to imagine what desire it could be that so troubled his friend, his conjectures were all far from the truth, and to relieve the anxiety which this perplexity was causing him, he told him he was doing a flagrant injustice to their great friendship in seeking circuitous methods of confiding to him his most hidden thoughts, for he well knew he might reckon upon his counsel in diverting them, or his help in carrying them into effect.† (source)
- This is a prodigious security against a direct contraband with foreign countries; but a circuitous contraband to one State, through the medium of another, would be both easy and safe.† (source)
- Would not so circuitous an intercourse facilitate the competitions of other nations, by enhancing the price of British commodities in our markets, and by transferring to other hands the management of this interesting branch of the British commerce?† (source)
- he was extremely glad, therefore, to meet him and test at close quarters what he had heard of him at a distance; so he said to him, "Despair not, valiant knight, nor regard as an untoward fate the position in which thou findest thyself; it may be that by these slips thy crooked fortune will make itself straight; for heaven by strange circuitous ways, mysterious and incomprehensible to man, raises up the fallen and makes rich the poor."† (source)
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