anfractuosity

== English == === Etymology === From Latin anfractuosus (“winding”). === Noun === anfractuosity (countable and uncountable, plural anfractuosities) A winding channel or crevice, such as occur in the depths of the sea or in mountains. 1645, Sir Thomas Urquhart, The Trissotetras, reprinted in The works of sir Thomas Urquhart (1834), T. Maitland ed., p. 95: 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. 1656 Blount Glossogr., cited in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, V1 P1, p. 322: Amfractuosity. 1860, "A Drama on the Sea-Shore (from "The Philosophical Studies of Honore de Balzac)" in The Dial, Volume 1, Moncure Daniel Conway ed., p. 301: At this moment, the Sun, sympathizing with these thoughts of love, or of the future, has cast on the tawny sides of this rock, an ardent light; some mountain flowers called attention, the calm and the silence enlarged this anfractuosity, sombre in reality, colored by the dreamer; then it was beautiful with its scant vegetation, its warm chamomillas, its hair of Venus with the velvet leaves; a festival prolonged, magnificent decorations, happy exaltation of human forces!' 1991, ?? (translator), Michel Leiris (author), Rules of the Game (La Règle du jeu), p. 85: “anfractuosity” conveys the idea of a fault or crack in a rock or boulder. One of the fissures (sulci) separating the convolutions of the brain, or, by analogy, in the mind. 1596, Peter Lowe, Whole Courese of Chirurgerie 241 cited in 1877, A new English Dictionary on Historical Principles V1 P1, 322: The vayne goeth aboue the artier, but not right lyne as other parts doe, but in anfractuosities, like unto a Woodbine. 1835, R. Owen, "On the Anatomy of the Cheetah", Felis Schreb, in Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, Volume 1, p. 130: The first or most anterior anfractuosity on the superior surface of the brain is longitudinal, and being the continuation and termination of the principal one on the inferior surface, it extends a very short distance from before backwards. ==== Related terms ==== anfractuous anfractuousness ==== Translations ====