circuitous
adjective
Did you know?
If you guessed that circuitous is related to circuit, you're right—both words come from Latin circuitus, the past participle of the verb circumire, meaning "to go around." Circumire is derived, in turn, from Latin circum, meaning "around," plus ire, which means "to go." Other circum descendants making the rounds in English include circumference ("the perimeter of a circle"), circumvent (one meaning of which is "to make a circuit around"), circumlocution ("the act of 'talking around' a subject"), and circumnavigate ("to go around"). There's also the prefix circum-, which means "around" or "about," and the familiar word circumstance, which describes a condition or event that "stands around" another.
Examples of circuitous in a Sentence
Barbara Bry, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 Mar. 2024
Visiting an unknown object The Psyche mission will take a circuitous route toward its asteroid objective.
—Stephen Clark, Ars Technica, 13 Oct. 2023
But her career choices reveal a circuitous route toward stardom, a push and pull between projects with famous directors and actors and those on a much smaller scale, including independent films and stage productions.
—Thessaly La Force, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2024
Weiman says Palestinians are now forced to take long, circuitous routes just to go between home and work.
—Eleanor Beardsley, NPR, 23 Mar. 2024
After the long, circuitous journey to gain admittance to the University of Kentucky, then having to sit out while the NCAA determined his eligibility, what difference would a few more seconds make?
—Ryan Black, The Courier-Journal, 20 Jan. 2024
Biden’s motorcade took a circuitous route to the Capitol, as hundreds of pro-cease-fire demonstrators tried to disrupt its path from the White House.
—Zeke Miller, Fortune, 8 Mar. 2024
Few athletes will be more deserving of their place at this year’s Games, which get underway in July, than May, and few will have had such an onerous, circuitous path to get there.
—Amanda Davies, CNN, 27 Feb. 2024
Slate took a circuitous path to both love and comedic stardom.
—Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 18 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'circuitous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Circuitous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/circuitous. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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