Wednesday, October 16, 2013

tortuous, torturous

Tortuous or tortuous means full of twists and bends, literally or figuratively--
Their horses were worn out after making the tortuous ascent to the top.
The tortuous plot of this movie is impossible to follow.

Torturous or torturous means inflicting great pain, physically or mentally--
Some mental hospitals still inflict torturous cures on patients, such as electroshock therapy.
Blasting noise at people all day is a torturous method of interrogation.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"Using tortuous logic, they decided that the torturous methods used on the prisoners were legally justifiable."

Note--"torture us" ( rhymes with torturous ) means to inflict great pain on the speaker and one or more others--
They threatened to torture us, so we signed a confession.

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