anfractuous
Oct. 15th, 2010 07:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordanfractuous (an-FRAK-choo-uhs) - adj., full of windings, sinuous, twisty; knotty, uneven, rough.
The second triplet is less well known, but are obvious extensions of meaning. One person suggests that pendanticism is often anfractuous. Me, I'm reminded of a slot canyon in Utah called Muley Twist Canyon, which is just as bendy as any slow river winding though flatland, only carved through solid sandstone. The word was borrowed around 1619 from Late Latin anfractuĊsus, from Latin anfractus, a digression, literally a coil or bend, from am(bi)-, around + fractus, past participle of frangere, to break.
---L.
The second triplet is less well known, but are obvious extensions of meaning. One person suggests that pendanticism is often anfractuous. Me, I'm reminded of a slot canyon in Utah called Muley Twist Canyon, which is just as bendy as any slow river winding though flatland, only carved through solid sandstone. The word was borrowed around 1619 from Late Latin anfractuĊsus, from Latin anfractus, a digression, literally a coil or bend, from am(bi)-, around + fractus, past participle of frangere, to break.
---L.
