| Main Entry: | roundabout |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | indirect |
Synonyms: |
ambiguous, circuitous, circular, circumlocutory, collateral, deviating, devious, discursive, evasive, meandering, oblique, obliquitous, periphrastic, taking the long way, tortuous |
Antonyms: |
direct, honest, straightforward |
| Main Entry: | circuitous |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | going around, indirect |
Synonyms: |
ambagious, back road, by way of, circular, collateral, complicated, devious, labyrinthine, long way, long way around, meandering, oblique, rambling, roundabout, tortuous, winding around |
Antonyms: |
direct, in line, straight |
| Main Entry: | circumlocution |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | indirect speech |
Synonyms: |
beating around the bush, circumambages, diffuseness, discursiveness, euphemism, gassiness, indirectness, periphrase, periphrasis, pleonasm, prolixity, roundabout, tautology, verbal evasion, verbality, verbiage, wordiness |
Antonyms: |
conciseness, directness, straightforwardness, terseness |
| Main Entry: | collateral |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | indirect, secondary |
Synonyms: |
accessory, accompanying, added, adjunctive, adjuvant, ancillary, appurtenant, attendant, auxiliary, circuitous, coincident, complementary, concomitant, concurrent, confirmatory, coordinate, corresponding, corroborative, dependent, incident, lateral, not lineal, parallel, related, roundabout, satellite, side, sub, subordinate, subservient, subsidiary, supporting, tributary, under |
Antonyms: |
chief, direct, main, primary, principal |
| Main Entry: | complex |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | difficult to understand |
Synonyms: |
Byzantine, Daedalean, Gordian, abstruse, bewildering, circuitous, complicated, confused, convoluted, crabbed, cryptic, discursive, disordered, disturbing, enigmatic, entangled, excursive, hidden, impenetrable, inscrutable, interwoven, intricate, involved, jumbled, knotted, knotty, labyrinthine, mazy, meandering, mingled, mixed, muddled, obscure, paradoxical, perplexing, puzzling, rambling, recondite, round-about, sinuous, snarled, sophisticated, tangled, tortuous, undecipherable, unfathomable, winding |
| Notes: | something complex may be well-organized and logically constructed as well as subtle and intricate, while a thing that is complicated will have something irregular, perverse, asymmetrical in addition to fundamental intricacy; complex is more formal and technical (a problem in mathematics is complex) while something like personal life can be complicated |
Antonyms: |
apparent, clear, direct, discernible, easy, evident, obvious, plain |
| Main Entry: | crooked |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | bent, angled |
Synonyms: |
agee, anfractuous, angular, asymmetric, awry, bowed, catawampus, circuitous, cockeyed, contorted, crippled, curved, curving, deformed, deviating, devious, disfigured, distorted, errant, gnarled, hooked, incurving, indirect, irregular, kinky, knurly, lopsided, meandering, misshapen, not straight, oblique, out of shape, rambling, roundabout, screwy, serpentine, sinuous, skewed, slanted, snaky, spiral, tilted, topsy-turvy, tortile, tortuous, twisted, twisting, uneven, warped, winding, zigzag |
Antonyms: |
straight |
| Main Entry: | devious |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | dishonest, crafty |
Synonyms: |
artful, calculating, crooked, deceitful, double-dealing, duplicitous, errant, erring, evasive, faking one out, fishy, foxy*, fraudulent, guileful, indirect, insidious, insincere, not straightforward, oblique, obliquitous, playing games, playing politics, put on, roundabout, scheming, shady, shifty, shrewd, sly, sneaking, sneaky, surreptitious, treacherous, tricky, underhanded, wily |
Antonyms: |
artless, frank, honest, open, straightforward, trustworthy, truthful |
| Main Entry: | devious |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | crooked; indirect |
Synonyms: |
ambiguous, bending, circuitous, confounding, confusing, curving, detouring, deviating, digressing, digressory, diverting, errant, erratic, excursive, flexuous, misleading, obscure, out-of-the-way, rambling, remote, removed, roundabout, serpentine, straying, tortuous, twisting, wandering |
Antonyms: |
direct, straight |
| Main Entry: | episodic |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | intermittent; composed of several tales |
Synonyms: |
anecdotal, digressive, disconnected, discursive, disjointed, incidental, irregular, occasional, picaresque, rambling, roundabout, segmented, soap opera, sporadic, wandering |
Antonyms: |
connected, lasting, permanent, regular, unbroken |
| Main Entry: | jaunt |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | expedition |
Synonyms: |
adventure, airing, amble, beat, canter, circuit, constitutional, course, cruise, drive, excursion, frolic, gallop, hike, jog, journey, junket, march, outing, patrol, peregrination, picnic, promenade, prowl, ramble, ride, round, roundabout, run, safari, sally, saunter, stroll, tour, tramp, travel, trek, trip, turn, voyage, walk |