All 3 Uses of
devious
in
Moby Dick
- So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor'—Westers, Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavigating wake.†
Chpt 43-45 *
- As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin.†
Chpt 79-81
- It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.†
Chpt Epil.
Definitions:
-
(1)
(devious as in: a devious plan) deceitful (not honest and straightforward) -- often in a complicated, clever manner
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, devious can mean indirect (often circuitous) as in: "We took a scenic but devious route."