Find the word definition

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Anfractuosity

Anfractuosity \An*frac`tu*os"i*ty\, n.; pl. Anfractuosities.

  1. A state of being anfractuous, or full of windings and turnings; sinuosity.

    The anfractuosities of his intellect and temper.
    --Macaulay.

  2. (Anat.) A sinuous depression or sulcus like those separating the convolutions of the brain.

Wiktionary
anfractuosity

n. 1 A winding channel or crevice, such as occur in the depths of the sea or in mountains. 2 One of the fissures (''sulci'') separating the convolutions of the brain, or, by analogy, in the mind.

Usage examples of "anfractuosity".

Langton if his father and mother had sat for their pictures, which he thought it right for each generation of a family to do, and being told they had opposed it, he said, "Sir, among the anfractuosities of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, that there is a superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture.

Beyond this boundary, with drawing from the limit of their domain, the radiant daughters of the sea kept turning at every moment to smile up at the bearded tritons who clung to the anfractuosities of the cliff, or towards some aquatic demi-god, whose head was a polished stone to which the tides had borne a smooth covering of seaweed, and his gaze a disc of rock crystal.

Come, Jack, help me turn it - see,' he cried with a shining face as it heaved over, 'in these anfractuosities there are still traces of my roots.

During the first fortnight he had worn himself raw, pulling on ropes, helping to saw wood, beating home treenails and wedges, and he had suffered much from the inherent malignity of things - no rope, pulled over the most innocent surface, that did not succeed in twisting upon itself or catching in some minute anfractuosity or protrusion.