The adjectives, torturous and tortuous, originate from the same Latin word, torquere, meaning “to twist,” but they have different meanings.
Tortuous describes a path or process that “winds and twists,”—the way a snake moves, curving back and forth—like a mountain road. It can describe any process with many steps, changes of direction, or other annoying complications.
Torturous describes anything that causes pain for some length of time, whether physical or mental. Note: tortorous is not a word, but a common spelling error for torturous.
Tortuous and torturous overlap in meaning, because long winding roads and tortuous processes are also painful:
The application process was quite tortuous/torturous.
In the above sentence, the words have different meanings but the idea is the same—it is a long, painful process.
More Examples of “Torturous” in a Sentence
- Perhaps the narrow and tortuous road up from the coast deters the really big tourist coaches.
- Ask anyone with depression who has a job and they will likely tell you of a tortuous process of concealment and subterfuge.
- The museum has been a tortuous decade in the making.
- Greece’s tortuous odyssey towards a resolution of its financial crisis hits another key stage this week, but probably not the final one.
- Jamal has had a tortuous series of interactions with the impossibly complex immigration system.
More Examples of “Tortuous” in a Sentence
- Before filming started, Stallone went through torturous trainings to build the perfect musculature.
- Everyone else struggles with the heavy sleds and it’s a slow, torturous grind.
- Is inhabitants went through torturous times under the Turks, but still remained there.
- His methods are violent, torturous, and intended to beat the prisoners into submission.
- I saw absolutely nothing in a torturous 90 minutes that will change anything.