anfractuosity means A winding channel or crevice, such as occur in the depths of the sea or in mountains. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “anfractuosity” is a great word
ANFRACTUOSITY — [Noun] A winding, intricate channel, crevice, or passage, or the quality of being full of such convolutions. From the Latin anfractuosus (“winding”). Unlike a “labyrinth,” which implies a designed puzzle, or “simplicity,” which promises directness, anfractuosity denotes the inherent, undeliberate complexity of the natural world. It is the dendritic branching of a dried riverbed, the deep-folded whorls of the cerebral cortex, and the sinuous fissure in a cracked boulder—nature’s quiet, enduring argument against the tyranny of the straight line.
noun
- A winding channel or crevice, such as occur in the depths of the sea or in mountains.“Here endeth the doctrine of the right-angled sphericalls, the whole diatyposis wherof is in the Equisolea or hippocrepidian diagram, whose most intricate amfractuosities, renvoys, various mixture of analogies, and perturbat situation of proportionall termes, cannot choose but be pervious to the understanding of any judicious reader that hath perused this comment aright.”
- One of the fissures (sulci) separating the convolutions of the brain, or, by analogy, in the mind.“The vayne goeth aboue the artier, but not right lyne as other parts doe, but in anfractuosities, like unto a Woodbine.”