anfractuous

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The Word of the Day for March 11 is:

anfractuous   \an-FRAK-chuh-wus\   adjective
     : full of windings and intricate turnings : tortuous 

Example sentence:
     "The film is finally sunk not by its anfractuous plot but by its
weight of whimsy." (Nigel Andrews, _Financial Times_, March 30, 1984)

Did you know?
     Plots and paths can be anfractuous. They twist and turn but do not
break. Never mind that our English word comes from Latin "anfractus" (same
meaning as "anfractuous"), which in turn comes from the Latin verb
"frangere," meaning "to break." ("Frangere" is also the source of
"fracture," "fraction,"
"fragment," and "frail.") The prefix "an-" here means "around" (from
"ambi-"). At first, "anfractuous" was all about ears and the auditory
canal's anfractuosity, that is, its being curved rather than straight. Now
"anfractuous" has been around some 400 years, without a break, giving it
plenty of time to wind its way into other applications; e.g., there can be
an anfractuous thought process, or an anfractuous shoreline.





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