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Circuitous   Listen
adjective
Circuitous  adj.  Going round in a circuit; roundabout; indirect; as, a circuitous road; a circuitous manner of accomplishing an end.
Synonyms: Tortuous; winding; sinuous; serpentine.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Circuitous" Quotes from Famous Books



... but at the same time rather nervous, because I knew that unless you are a master and the other person happens to be a boy it is much easier to talk about a plain understanding than to arrive at it, I strolled on to the lawn, and after taking a circuitous route I sat down by Nina. I had got her at a disadvantage because she was reading a book which my mother had said was good for her, and if I sat there long enough and bounced a tennis-ball up and down in front of me I knew she ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... pretext of planting camotes [60] and corn on the hill some thirty miles away from the village, he ordered his sons to accompany him. When they came to a forest, their father led them through a circuitous path, and at last took them to the hill. As soon as they arrived there, each set to work: one cut down trees, another built a shed, and the others cleared a piece of land in which to ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... broke in his patron. They went out accordingly, and reached the Champs Elysees by a circuitous route. The place was admirably suited to their purpose, for close by were several of those little wooden huts, occupied in summer by the vendors ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... by the Cape Cod canal, had its origin in Great Herring Pond in the Plymouth woods and flowed by a rather circuitous route into Buzzards Bay at a point near the present railroad ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various

... doubt, even then, if he would be successful. These fellows know that a strong party is in pursuit of them, and each of them will do everything they can to throw us off the scent. They are sure not to go straight to their place of meeting, but each will take circuitous routes, and will make for thick bush, where it will be next to impossible for even a native to follow them. No, they have ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... wanderings and vicissitudes, entered its gates. Returning from a last visit to his birthplace, he was on his way to Basel, when, finding the direct road occupied by the armies of Charles V., he was forced to take the circuitous route by Geneva. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... charm of foliage to the brilliant colours of the rocks and the sheen of falling water, here and there lost in the most profound shadows. Beaman made a number of views while the rest of the men climbed for various purposes. Steward, Clem, and I by a circuitous route arrived at a point high up on Leaping Brook where the scene was beyond description. To save trouble on the return we descended the brook as it was easy to slide down places that could not be climbed. In this manner we succeeded ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... suffering from his depot at Mozhaisk, but, in fact, he had not waited long enough materially to assist the wounded, and had secured no advantage from the bloody battle. In the absence of trustworthy information he took (when once he did move) a long, circuitous road. As yet there was no cold except the usual sharpness of autumn nights; but the summer uniforms of the troops were tattered and their shoes worn. Germans, Italians, and Illyrians began to straggle, and the horrors of the approaching cold, as depicted by Russian ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... repeated this operation several times with a wonderful expression of intelligence and reflection on his little face, and then dashed away with astounding accuracy in the direction of Lawah town. Mind you, he did not at all follow the track that we had come by, which was somewhat circuitous, but went in a bee line for his native place and not a second to the left or right of the direct bearings which I took with my prismatic compass to check his direction. Sadek and the camel men went in pursuit of him and ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... hope, yet some strange fascinating aberration bewitched and compelled me still to beguile myself with expectation. The other part of my brain seemed to tell me that while there was no possibility of my father being alive, yet, if I quit making the circuitous pilgrimage, if I paused for a single moment, it would be acknowledgment of defeat, and, should I do this, I felt that I should go mad. Thus, hour after hour I walked around and around, afraid to stop and rest, ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... Master," the negro answered, hitching his burnouse about his shoulders. "We must travel by a circuitous route." ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... line about one mile and a half, and lessen the expense of the project at the same time; thence in a line, nearly straight, to Bow-Bridge, passing on the South side of the village of Wighill, and close to the North end of the village of Walton. Thence in a circuitous direction towards Wetherby;—but if the line was permitted to pass from the North end of the village of Walton to the North side of Ingmanthorpe, the seat of Richard Fountaine Wilson, Esq. distant from his residence about four hundred ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee

... Ohio, known as the Alleghany River, has a length of four hundred miles, and its source is in the county of Potter, in northern Pennsylvania. It takes a very circuitous course through a portion of New York state, and re-enters Pennsylvania flowing through a hilly region, and at the flourishing city of Pittsburgh mingles its waters with ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... by visiting the promontory called "the Capstan"—or rather attempting that visit; for after mounting to nearly its height, by a circuitous path from the town, by which alone the ascent is possible, the side of the promontory being a mere precipice overlooking the ocean, a sudden gust of wind dashed so violently against us, that in the danger of being blown into the sea, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... his companions in the mean time, in order to reach their destination, found it necessary, unless they should take a long and circuitous route, to cross one of those lofty peaks for which the Rocky Mountains are so famous. The ascent was however commenced and successfully accomplished; but, not without labor and an occasional resting-place being sought for breathing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... peremptorily refused to avail himself of a mode of escape provided for him and he equally peremptorily refused to listen to any terms from Government, which did not include all his comrades. His object, on the night he was arrested, was to make another trial at Cashel, which he designed to approach by a circuitous route. ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... I answered. "If you have noted our direction you will find we have traveled a pretty circuitous route. He'll wait until he thinks he is safe from pursuit, and then take a bee line for ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... especially as I believed, from his statements and the appearance of the seeds, that they did germinate, and I further have no doubt that their antiquity must be immense. I am sorry also for the trouble you have had. I heard the other day through a circuitous course how you are astonishing all the clodhoppers in your whole part of the county: and [what is] far more wonderful, as it was remarked to me, that you had not, in doing this, aroused the envy of all the good surrounding sleeping parsons. What good you must do to the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... it was because of them that she had grown and flourished, with her sawmills and her ginmills, her docks, and her dives. But at the time when this story opens Alaska had developed to a point where an overland outlet by winter and a circuitous inlet, by way of Bering Sea and the crooked Yukon, in summer were no longer sufficient, There was need of a permanent route by means of which men and freight might come and go through all the year. The famous North Pass & Yukon Railway, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... of the 11th of September, the British army advanced in two columns; the right, under General Knyphausen, marched straight to Chad's ford; the left, under Cornwallis, accompanied by Howe and Generals Grey, Grant, and Agnew, proceeded by a circuitous route toward a point named the Forks, where the two branches of the Brandywine unite, with a view to turn the right of the Americans and gain their rear. General Knyphausen's van soon found itself opposed to the light troops under General ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... or two was necessary to become familiarized to the novel objects around us, and my departure for London was postponed. We profited by the delay, to visit Netley Abbey, a ruin of some note, at no great distance from Southampton. The road was circuitous, and we passed several pretty country-houses, few of which exceeded in size or embellishments, shrubbery excepted, similar dwellings at home. There was one, however, of an architecture much more ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of his eldest brother, and, bidding Noyon adieu, set out, in company with his younger brother and sister, on his way to Strasbourg. The direct road being rendered dangerous by the armies of Charles V., which had penetrated into France, he sought a circuitous route through Savoy ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... directed and urged on by the "very best men" in civil and "sacred" office. These are facts from the lips of U. S. officers, men who do not lie. Very often the troops were called out to capture these bloody bands, but it was hard to locate them or bring them to a stand. The natives knew so many circuitous ways of running to cover and they had so many friends to aid them that it was almost impossible to follow them. Whenever they were captured they were so surprised, so humiliated, so innocent, meek and subdued, that it would never occur to ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... were quickly worked through and they passed into the main river. Little short of a miracle had been performed. The ditch was growing wider and deeper every moment and judging from the enormous flow of water, it would not be long before the river deserted its circuitous route in ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... luckily for them, was still buried in repose, and wound their circuitous way back to the turret where the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... his mind to settle at Colmar. Madame Faragon, who was naturally much interested in the matter, and was moreover not without curiosity, could never quite learn how matters stood at Granpere. A word or two she had heard in a circuitous way of Marie Bromar, but from George himself she could never learn anything of his affairs at home. She had asked him once or twice whether it would not be well that he should marry, but he had always replied that he did not think of such a thing—at any rate as yet. He ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... reign of Sujin, 33 B.C. when an envoy from Kara arrived at the Mizugaki Court, praying that a Japanese general might be sent to compose a quarrel which had long raged between Kara and Shiragi, and to take the former under Japan's protection. It appears that this envoy had travelled by a very circuitous route. He originally made the port of Anato (modern Nagato), but Prince Itsutsu, who ruled there, claimed to be the sole monarch of Japan and refused to allow the envoy to proceed, so that the latter had to travel ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... not take the circuitous route of the day before, but one that shortened the distance by some ten miles. We travelled a wild country, crossing unknown creeks that have since proved gold-bearing, and climbing again the high ridge of the divide. Then once more we dropped down into the Bonanza basin, and by nightfall ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... distance in his circuitous return when he became aware of the sound of voices that seemed to be drawing closer to him as he came toward the speakers. He stopped and stood listening, and instantly, as he stopped, the voices stopped also. He crouched there silently in the bright, glimmering moonlight, surrounded ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... circuitous one, but she had kept along the edge of the wood, so that now, as she stopped, she found herself under the shadow of the trees, and immediately opposite the portico of Dalton Hall, between which and herself ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... small ravine, they came to what in Ireland they call "a bad step," and Charles had to carry his cousin over it; and then when they had to come back, she would not give him the trouble again for the world, so they followed a better but more circuitous route, and there were hedges and ditches in the way, and stiles to get over and gates to get through, so that an hour or more had elapsed before they were ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... the allotted feeding ground was reached. There was, however, little fear of losing them, as each wore a tiny bell round the neck, which, tinkling at every movement, warned the boy of the straggler; a call invariably brought it back, though often by a circuitous route, enabling the animal to keep beyond the reach of the whip, which Stephan ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... has in the exclusive use of the best roads at night, especially when the nights are long and the days correspondingly short—an advantage which cannot be overcome by any superiority of numbers in the pursuing force, except by a rapid circuitous march of a detachment. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... equally delightful. Looking across a bend in the canon from Grand View Point to Bissell's Point the distance seems to be scarcely more than a stone's throw, yet it is fully half the distance of the circuitous ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... now left to the right, but those of the Telleno range, just before they unite with that chain. Round the sides of this valley, which exhibited something of the appearance of a horse-shoe, wound the road in a circuitous manner; just before us, however, and diverging from the road, lay a footpath which seemed, by a gradual descent, to lead across the valley, and to rejoin the road on the other side, at the distance of about a furlong; and into this ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... controversy. As we have already seen, there were complex reasons for his choice of technique. He was a naturally witty man who, sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of malice, expressed himself best through circuitous irony. In 1724, when he himself considered his oratorical practice, he argued that his matter determined his style, that the targets of his belittling wit were the "saint-errants." We can only imagine the exasperation ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... she led the way on tiptoe, followed by the children out of the room, and round by a circuitous ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... confidence in its efficiency to risk a battle in a comparatively level country. Numerically, the Carlists were superior to their opponents, but in artillery, and especially in cavalry, the Christinos had the advantage. From various garrison towns, through which he had passed in his circuitous route from Bilboa to Larraga, the Christino commander had collected reinforcements, and an imposing number of squadrons, including several of lancers and dragoons of the royal guard, formed part of the force now assembled at ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... Moving boldly northward, he struck the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, burning the bridge across the Accotink Run, and from Burke's Station he swung around Fairfax Court House, and returned, by long, circuitous route, into their lines with their ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... the town, Taee took a new and circuitous way, in order to show me what, to use a familiar term, I will call the 'Station,' from which emigrants or travellers to other communities commence their journeys. I had, on a former occasion, expressed a wish to see their vehicles. ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... restore the Roman Church in the country; but the ministers having become informed of his designs, raised such a storm against him that he was driven to make a public renunciation of Popery, and obliged to prosecute his mission by more cautious and circuitous methods than he intended to use. Lennox's evil influence on James in ecclesiastical affairs soon became apparent. On the See of Glasgow becoming vacant, the benefice was appropriated by himself and the title bestowed on Robert Montgomery, ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... consciousness, or else as a self-inflicted penance for feeling it, while in some tender consciences its checked but persistent vestiges may become centers of morbid complexes and in yet other cases it burrows and proliferates more or less unconsciously, and finds secret and circuitous ways of indulgence which only psychoanalysis or a moral ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... into shadows. By the time he arrived at the spot where he had first seen the horse and rider he had become convinced that Taggart had secreted himself until he had passed him and had then ridden over the back trail, later to return to the Arrow by a circuitous route. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... career. It was no less a person than the Duke of Exeter whom Alwyn's shaft had disabled for the field. This incident, coupled with the hearty address of the stout goldsmith, served to reanimate the flaggers, and Gloucester, by a circuitous route, reaching their line a moment after, they dressed their ranks, and a flight of arrows followed their loud ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... settlement. All accounts concur in representing the journey as one of extreme hardship, and even peril. The distance is not exactly known, but it is variously represented at from four to seven days' journey. Persons bound for Sonora from California, who do not mind a circuitous route, should ascend the Gila as far as the Pimos village, and thence penetrate the province by way of Tucson. At the ford, the Colorado is 1,500 feet wide, and flows at the rate of a mile and a half per hour. Its ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... out,—not going through the narrow passage that led to the offices, but avoiding it by a circuitous route. If it cost him any pain to think why he did it, he showed none in his calm, observant face. Buttoning up his coat as he went: the October sunset looked as if it ought to be warm, but he was deathly cold. On the street the young doctor beset ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... proposition which opened such a vista of circuitous and careful speech, were he to attempt to answer it and be true to conscience without being false to patriotism, that Mr. Hunter was driven to reply, "I am unable to deny the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... transactions. Sincere! Why, he was struggling for his existence! And when baffled, first by the Venetian party, and afterwards by the panic of Jacobinism, he was forced to forego his direct purpose, he still endeavoured partially to effect it by a circuitous process. He created a plebeian aristocracy and blended it with the patrician oligarchy. He made peers of second-rate squires and fat graziers. He caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched them from the counting-houses of Cornhill. When Mr Pitt in an age of bank ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... was Roanoke, took the circuitous route by the West India islands, and had a long passage of four months. The reckoning had been out for three days, and serious propositions had been made for returning to England, when a fortunate storm drove him to the mouth of the Chesapeake. On the 26th of April, he descried cape ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... enveloped from sight, and a lurid red flame through the cloud of smoke was the only guide for the German shot. So the fighting lasted for some time, till an adjutant sprang from over the field behind, which he had reached by a circuitous way, bringing from the commander-in-chief the questions as to what was going on, and why were they there. The major pointed with his sword at the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... occasions, Yarrow continued his efforts to drive his plunder forward, until the day began to dawn, a signal which, he conceived, rendered it necessary for him to desert his spoil, and slink homeward by a circuitous road. It is generally said this accomplished dog was hanged along with his master; but the truth is, he survived him long, in the service of a man in Leithen, yet was said afterwards to have shown little of the wonderful instinct exhibited ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... Madison for the steamer, we determined to cross to the next port by an Indian trail through the woods; though we were told that it was very rough travelling, and that no white woman had ever crossed there, and, also, that we might have to take circuitous routes to avoid fires. We started early in the morning, allowing the whole day for the journey. We passed through one of the burnt regions, where the trees were still standing, so gray and spectral that it was like a strange dream. Farther along we heard a prolonged, mournful sound, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... discussions, I have sometimes cut the matter short, expressing myself with dogmatic definiteness where a sceptical vagueness might perhaps have seemed more becoming. In treating of popular legends and superstitions, the paths of inquiry are circuitous enough, and seldom can we reach a satisfactory conclusion until we have travelled all the way around Robin Hood's barn and back again. I am sure that the reader would not have thanked me for obstructing these crooked lanes with the thorns and brambles of philological and antiquarian ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... travelled by a circuitous route; got into one hackney-coach and out of another; drove hither, thither, and everywhere, to baffle my mother's spies. Do you suppose that any one of her bigoted followers would believe in a chaste friendship like ours? Do you suppose they would ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... lead to Varallo; one somewhat circuitous by Mantegna, a village notable for a remarkable fresco outside the church, in which the Virgin is appearing to a lady and gentleman as they are lying both of them fast asleep in a large bed, with their two dear little round heads on a ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... away by the great ice-river in the stormy time of the Glacial Period. In that dim day one of those frigid rivers gouged a mighty channel from out the solid rock. This channel to-day is Yosemite Valley. But to return to the Half Dome. On its northeastern side, by circuitous trails and stiff climbing, one may gain the Saddle. Against the slope of the Dome the Saddle leans like a gigantic slab, and from the top of this slab, one thousand feet in length, curves the great circle to the summit of the Dome. A few degrees too steep for unaided climbing, these one thousand ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... above a thousand feet deep. Here the cavalry stopped short. Hannibal, wondering at this sudden halt, ran to the place, and saw that it really would be impossible for the troops to advance. He therefore was for making a circuitous route, but this also was found impracticable. As, upon the old snow, which was grown hard by lying, there was some newly fallen that was of no great depth, the feet, at first, by their sinking into ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... superstitious was he. Especially he could never understand why he, weary and harassed as he was, could not have returned home by the shortest route, instead of across the Haymarket, which was quite out of the way. Certainly, a dozen times before, he had reached his lodgings by most circuitous routes, and never known through which streets he had come. But why (he always asked) should such a really fateful meeting have taken place in the market (through which there was no need to go), and happen, too, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... on no circuitous information; it has come to me direct.' She asked him, exactly as before, if he were there to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... of his exploits occurred when he had formed a junction with Bolivar on the plains of Apure. Their troops were in an almost starving condition, and unless they could cross the river they would have to make a circuitous march of many leagues to obtain provisions; while on the opposite bank were seen vast numbers of cattle, which could not be reached for want of boats. About midway across the stream there was also a fleet of sixty flecheras, or gun-boats, well-armed and manned, belonging ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... observations, I proposed pursuing our journey towards the Blue Hills, which were still in sight at the distance of several leagues to the westward; and, having advanced to the southwest as long as circumstances should appear to make it interesting or practicable, to return by a circuitous route to the ships. We travelled in a W.1/2S. direction, in order to keep on a ridge along the coast, which afforded the only tolerable walking, the snow being very deep on the lower parts of the land. We halted at half past seven A.M., on ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... the shouts and outcries above him had ceased. He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached by a circuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, that if he could only reach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily descend to the stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountain hidden in a growth of hazel-brush. He bound up his wounded leg, and dragged ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... three different directions, I found that the whole of the low country round the termination of Flinders range, was completely surrounded by Lake Torrens, which, commencing not far from the head of Spencer's Gulf, takes a circuitous course of fully 400 miles, of an apparent breadth of from twenty to thirty miles, following the sweep of Flinders range, and almost encircling it in the form ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... direction was afforded at Port Fairy, Belfast, South Victoria. Here the oscillation of the water was distinctly perceived at midday on August 14th; and yet, to reach this point, the sea-wave must not only have travelled on a circuitous course nearly equal in length to half the circumference of the earth, but must have passed through Bass's Straits, between Australia and Van Diemen's Land, and so have lost a considerable portion of its force and dimensions. When wL remember that had not the effects of the earth-shock on ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... the point where a lady should enter it. He was at that point to leave, without words. It had been impressed on McGuire that utter silence was imperative. The chauffeur was then to follow in the runabout, acting as a reserve in the event of need. Both cars were to take a certain circuitous route to a point on the shore thirty miles distant, the runabout keeping just close enough to hold the first car in sight. McGuire had listened and understood. Yet now McGuire was missing, together with one ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... Thither, as nothing else now remained to divert us from what, in fact, we had thirsted for throughout the heats of summer, and throughout the magnificences of the capital, at length we set off by movements as slow and circuitous as those of any royal progress in the reign of Elizabeth. Making but short journeys on each day, and resting always at the house of some private friend, I thus obtained an opportunity of seeing the old Irish nobility and gentry ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... whether he should endeavour to force his way straight forward through the camp of the enemy; or whether, without attempting an enterprise of so great difficulty and danger, he should not rather take a circuitous and safe road, so as to penetrate into Macedonia by the country of the Dassaretians and Lycus. The latter plan would have been adopted, had he not feared that, in removing to a greater distance from the sea, the enemy might slip out of his hands; and that if the king should resolve ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... planks which are utilized for both streets and sidewalks. We rattle along East and intersecting streets until we reach Sansome, upon which we proceed to Bush, which practically bounds the business district on the south, thence we meander by a circuitous route to Laurel Hill Cemetery near Lone Mountain. A guide is almost necessary. An incoming stranger once asked the conductor to let him off at the American Exchange, which the car passed. He was surprised at ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... could not say no, and with a mental groan he parted company with another bill, while John, on the platform without, danced the "double shuffle" in token of his delight. There was a second grocery to be passed, but by taking a more circuitous route it could be avoided, and the discomfited bridegroom bade John ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... the reason of this sudden relaxation of vigilance. Perhaps it was because all their attention was directed to Huntsville, which was now occupied in force by General Mitchel. The panic produced by this occupation was immense, as the only communication it left them with Beauregard was by the circuitous route through Atlanta, and when, the next day, this too was endangered, their excitement ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... for Adam's wounded senses, and with a heavy heart and step Eve took her way back to him, while Reuben and Joan continued to thread the streets which took them by a circuitous road home ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... miles away, bore W. 15 degrees S., and next day we made a bid for it by a march of sixteen miles. There was eleven days' ration on the sledge to take us to Mount Murchison, ninety miles away; consequently the circuitous route to the land was held to be a ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... Shann found the wolverines and patiently coaxed and wheedled them into coming with him over a circuitous route which kept them away from both ships. Thorvald went up the cliff, swung down again, a supply bag slung over one shoulder. He stood watching as ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... hang upon the skirts of the retreating army and avoid an engagement. Lee was aggressive, almost insulting, in counselling inaction, Washington, much embarrassed, but hesitating to ignore the decisions of the council, followed the enemy by a circuitous route, until he reached the neighbourhood of Princeton. The British were in and about Allentown. Washington called another council of war, and urged the propriety of forcing an engagement before the enemy could reach the Heights of Monmouth. Again Lee overruled, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... of detail, in the main it is best that the bold course was taken, We rode boldly, and, in the last months, we had to ride for a fall. An experiment has been made by frontal attack, and with the slenderest of resources. Now that all that is over, the time has come to begin the slow and circuitous approach toward political education as ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... the oidium or some malady of that sort, is a thing of the past, the spot retains many other charms ample to justify a trip to its shores by a more roundabout way than the slow and direct or costly and circuitous routes laid down by Mr. Benjamin. Teneriffe ranks close to Madeira, and the Valley of Orotava, scooped out of the flank of the famous peak, is recommended as simply perfection for sufferers from "pulmonary complaints, rheumatism or neuralgia," and beneficial even ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... continued for nearly an hour to admonish her friend. Miss Bart listened with admirable equanimity. 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. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... By a circuitous way I managed to reach my bedroom unseen. It did not take me long to change my clothes, hang them to dry, and appear on the main veranda where Miss Augusta was still sewing. I picked up the book I had left ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... account, Roswell Gardiner felt that he was now enlisted in the most important undertaking of his whole life, as he and Stephen shook hands with the two mates, and left the point. The drifts rendered a somewhat circuitous path necessary at first; but the moon and stars shed so much of their radiance on the frozen covering of the earth, that the night was quite as light as many a London day. Excitement and motion kept the blood of our two adventurers in a brisk circulation, and prevented their becoming immediately ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Amherst tried not to be too sanguine, even in his own thoughts. His aim was to remedy the abuse nearest at hand, in the hope of thus getting gradually closer to the central evil; and, had his action been unhampered, he would still have preferred the longer and more circuitous path of practical experiment to the sweeping adoption ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... sopped it half dry with his handkerchief, already soaked. Then, not caring, in his condition, to show himself on the main street of the village, he crossed over to the lane that skirted the out-lots, and went thence by a circuitous and little traveled route, ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... feudal castle with a modern dwelling, though with only indifferent success, excepting in the expenditure involved. The roads from the great suspension-bridge across the strait lead on either hand to Bangor and Beaumaris, although the route is rather circuitous. This bridge, crossing at the narrowest and most beautiful part of the strait, was long regarded as the greatest triumph of bridge-engineering. It carried the Holyhead high-road across the strait, and was built by ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... infected regions the soil becomes fairly alive with these larvae, and it is hardly possible for a child to walk barefoot outdoors without becoming infected. When the larvae have penetrated the hand or foot, they begin a long and circuitous journey through the body, moving from the extremities through the veins to the heart and thence to the lungs. From here they are carried through air cells into the bronchial tubes, thence along the mucous membrane up the windpipe and down into the stomach and finally, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... determination to the Baronet and his nephew. The latter barely communicated the fact, and pointed out the necessary preparations for joining his regiment. To his brother, Richard was more diffuse and circuitous. He coincided with him, in the most flattering manner, in the propriety of his son's seeing a little more of the world, and was even humble in expressions of gratitude for his proposed assistance; was, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... express what I feel in that spirit of ambiguity which a love not confident in the truth, purity, and rectitude of its own principles must always borrow—that because my heart fails to approach yours by the usual circuitous route with which ordinary hearts do approach—yes, you may imagine for all these reasons that my affection is not—but—" and here she checked herself—"why," she added, with dignity, whilst her cheeks glowed and her eyes ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... and delays of this circuitous route has long been the anxious wish of all commercial nations, and to a certain extent this may be accomplished in the manner here pointed out. In the course of time, and in case prospects are sufficiently ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... himself. Turning quickly to his troop, he singled out a renegado Christian, a traitor to his religion and his king. "Come hither," said Hamet. "Thou knowest all the secret passes of the country?"—"I do," replied the renegado.—"Dost thou know any circuitous route, solitary and untravelled, by which we can pass wide within these troops and reach the Serrania?"—The renegado paused: "Such a route I know, but it is full of peril, for it leads through the heart of the Christian land."—"'Tis well," said Hamet; ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... reduction of walls they had none; funds for the maintenance of a protracted methodical warfare were not to be looked for, in their savage and half-cultivated plains. The communication with Spain by the circuitous route of the Pyrenees and Alps, had been found, by dear-bought experience, to be difficult in the extreme. It could only be opened again, by an army nearly as powerful as that which had first penetrated through it, under ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... not communicate them, and I may watch over her safety if I may not avenge her injuries." I therefore took advantage of my knowledge of the neighbourhood, passed the stranger with a quick step, and then, running rapidly, returned by a circuitous route to the mouth of a narrow and dark street, which was exactly opposite to Isora's house. Here I concealed myself by a projecting porch, and I had not waited long before I saw the dim form of the stranger ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... guiding us by so circuitous a path that finally I began to suspect he had lost his way, and, calling a halt, suggested that we had better make a shelter and stop until daylight, particularly as the snow was now falling. When you are lost in the bush it is a good ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... after the murder of Porteous. It was possible for him with ease to have found a much shorter road to the house to which he was directing his course, and, in fact, that which he chose was extremely circuitous. But to compose his own spirits, as well as to while away the time, until a proper hour for visiting the family without surprise or disturbance, he was induced to extend his circuit by the foot of the rocks, and to linger upon his way until the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... still, Spunkie isn't Spunk, you understand!" he had finished, with a vision in his eyes of Billy as she had looked that first night when she had triumphantly lifted from the green basket the little gray kitten with its enormous pink bow. This time there was no circuitous journeying, no secrecy in the trip to New York. Quite as a matter of course the three brother made their plans to meet Billy, and quite as a matter of course they met her. Perhaps the only cloud in the horizon of their happiness was the presence of Calderwell. He, too, ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... physically and had long years of service as a private in the old Russian Army, and was without question a most able leader of men. During this four days' attack and counter attack he had led his men by a circuitous route through the forests, wading in swamps waist deep, carrying machine guns and rations. The nights were of course miserably cold and considerable snow had fallen, but Foukes would risk no fire of any kind for fear of discovery. It was not due to any lack of ability or strategy on his part ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... from following him into by-paths and secret, pleasant places; but I shall not be denied just one indulgence. In the great days when Lord Grey was Governor-General he formed a party to visit Prince Edward Island. The route was a circuitous one. It began at Ottawa; it extended to Winnipeg, down the Nelson River to York Factory, across Hudson Bay, down the Strait, by Belle Isle and Newfoundland, and across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to a place called Orwell. Lord Grey in the matter of company had the reputation ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae

... Lomond is so steep and woody that before the formation of roads, the Highlanders found it impossible to pass that way. The way to Argyleshire, therefore, ran along the vale of Fruin in a circuitous direction to the head of Loch Long, and again turned eastward towards Loch Lomond. In the middle of the glen the Macgregors, who were peacefully returning home, were attacked by the Colquhouns. The assailants were four to one; but the valour of the Macgregors prevailed, and two hundred ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... with the opening words of the poems themselves—as "I was looking a long while;" "To get betimes in Boston Town;" "When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed;" and so on. It seems to me that in a selection such a lengthy and circuitous method of identifying the poems is not desirable: I should wish them to be remembered by brief, repeatable, and significant titles. I have therefore supplied titles of my own to such pieces as bear none in the original edition: wherever a real title appears in that edition, I have ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... friars of the same order. The party proceeded leisurely, travelling more by night than by day, diminishing gradually in number till, at the entrance of a broad and desolate plain, only four remained with the cart. Over this plain they hastened, then wound through a circuitous path concealed in prickly brushwood, and paused before a huge, misshapen crag, seemingly half buried in the earth: in this a door, formed of one solid stone, flew back at their touch; the coffin, taken with ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... find the snake—an elderly one with a dozen rattles—devotedly following her. Alarmed, not for her own safety nor that of her family, but for the existence of her grateful friend in danger of the blacksmith's hammer, she took a circuitous route leading it away. Then recalling a bit of woodland lore once communicated to her by a charcoal-burner, she broke a spray of the white ash, and laid it before her in the track of the rattlesnake. ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... original efforts of his contemporaries." This "natural expectation" is not disappointed, in Professor Thorndike's opinion, by a comparison between some of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays and those he calls the "romances" of Shakspere,—"Cymbeline," "The Tempest," and "Winter's Tale." The argument is circuitous, but must be carefully followed in order to estimate the validity and weight of ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... After much circuitous wandering I came to the dwelling of the brother of my Clausthal friend. Here I stayed all night and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... them to inquire about their intention, and, when a few miles from Liberty, in Clay County, General Atchison and other Missourians met them and warned them not to defy popular feeling by entering that town. Accepting this advice, they took a circuitous route and camped on Rush Creek, whence Smith on June 25 sent a letter to General Atchison's committee saying that, in the interest of peace, "we have concluded that our company ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... soon changed his course, so that Hood was obliged to take a circuitous route to the west and north. To follow Hood indefinitely, without much prospect of overtaking and overwhelming his army, would be for Sherman equivalent to being decoyed out of Georgia. To remain on the defensive, on the other hand, would be to lose the main effectiveness ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... of this eminent man; he practised the cunning of an adventurer—a cunning most humiliating in the narrative! The great difficulty to overcome in this discovery is, how to account for a sage and a hero acting folly and cowardice, and attempting to obtain by circuitous deception what it may be supposed so magnanimous a spirit would only deign to possess himself of by direct ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... do is this, General," said the other: "from here, I go to the house we know of, taking a circuitous route, loitering on the way, and making certain that I am not followed. If I find myself followed, I will pass this shop, dropping my handkerchief in front of it and then turning back to pick it up. If I am not followed, I enter the other house, mount to the roof and ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... acquainted with the procedure of true genius, how it is impelled by an almost unconscious and immediate contemplation of great and important truths, and in no wise by convictions obtained mediately, and by circuitous deductions, will be on that ground alone extremely suspicious of all activity in art which originates in an abstract theory. But Corneille did not, like an antiquary, execute his dramas as so many learned school exercises, on the model of the ancients. Seneca, it is true, led him ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Paper-Masses now intrusted to him; wherefore he determines to edit the same. Out of old Books, new Writings, and much Meditation not of yesterday, he will endeavour to select a thing or two; and from the Past, in a circuitous way, illustrate the Present and the Future. The Past is a dim indubitable fact: the Future too is one, only dimmer; nay properly it is the same fact in new dress and development. For the Present holds it in both the whole Past and the whole Future;—as the Life-tree ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... impossible without conflicts, from which the vanquished emerged less scathed than the victors,[1030] and even this primary object of the expedition was for the time abandoned. He was forced to adopt the circuitous device of attracting the presence of the king, and weakening the loyalty of his subjects, by a series of mere plundering raids on the wealthiest portions of the country. It was a plan that in default of a really effective occupation of the whole country, especially of some occupation of Western ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... however, but not exactly in the form he had anticipated, for in 1862 he sailed from Liverpool to London, and in 1870 he took the opportunity of walking back from London to Lancashire in company with his brother. We walked by a circuitous route, commencing in an easterly direction, and after being on the road for a fortnight, or twelve walking days, as we did not walk on Sundays, we covered the distance of 306 miles at an average of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... grown-up warriors. They were now but one day's journey ahead of them, as Miss Percival was very sore on her feet, and they could not get her along, but that in every other respect she had been well treated. That the Indians were not going to their lodges in a direct course, but by a circuitous route, which would make a difference of at least six or seven days; and that they did this that they might not be seen by some other tribes who were located in their direct route, and who might ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... motor go tearing down the road past me, and come to a standstill at the turn. Still I had no thought of any danger. It never occurred to me to leave the footpath and make my way back to the "Brand," as I might well have done, by a more circuitous route. I kept on the footpath, and just as I reached the little iron gate which led into the spinney, I felt a man's arm suddenly flung around my neck, and with a jerk I was thrown ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... swiftly on, and Harriet returned to the house by a circuitous route, surmising that "Miss May's" eyes ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... something to communicate. A man of more refinement and address than I can pretend to would make this communication in a more circuitous and artful manner; and a man less deeply interested in the establishment of truth would act with more caution and forbearance. I have no excuse to plead, no forgiveness to ask, for what I am now going to disclose. I demand nothing from you but your patient attention while ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... a petty Eesa chief, having been procured as protector of the party, and other arrangements having been made, Burton on November 27th (1854) set out for his destination by a circuitous route. Raghi rode in front. Next, leading camels, walked two enormously fat Somali women; while by the side of the camels rode Burton's three attendants, the Hammal, Long Gulad, and "The End of Time," "their frizzled wigs radiant with grease," and ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... me by a circuitous route, and ten minutes late, to the end of Fetter Lane, where, exchanging my rather abstracted air for the alert manner of a busy practitioner, I strode forward briskly and darted into the surgery with knitted brows, as though just released from an anxious case. But there was only ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... taken in pursuit, and carefully avoided them. Seeking a destination where the chances of detection would be lessened, he was attracted towards Geneva, already famous as the hot-bed of secret societies and the rallying-point of infidelity. He would reach it by a circuitous route. From Paris to the historic old capital of Switzerland, in the centre of mountains and the heart of Europe, was a herculean journey ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... Isaacs to the maharajah, "despatch at once a messenger, and let the man here mentioned be brought under a strong guard and by circuitous roads to the pass of Keitung, and let them there encamp before the third week from to-day, when the moon is at the full. And I will be there and will receive the man. And woe to you if he come not; and woe ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... university under predominatingly lay control is all that even the hierarchy in Ireland demand; while to add to the groundlessness on which intolerance is based the only institution of a satisfactory kind which is endowed by the State is a Jesuit College supported by what one can only call circuitous means. ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... or at a safe distance from the hurtling pans, cans and stove wood, caressed sundry bumps and waited meekly. Irish and Big Medicine, once more disclosing the features God had given them, returned by a circuitous route and ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower



Words linked to "Circuitous" :   indirect



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