1620s, "full of windings and turnings," from Latin anfractuosus "roundabout, winding," from anfractus "a winding, turning, a bending round," especially "a circuitous route," also figuratively, in rhetoric, "circumlocution," from am(bi)- "around" (from PIE root *ambhi- "around") + fractus, past participle of frangere "to break" (from PIE root *bhreg- "to break"). T.S. Eliot uses it in the French sense "craggy," which probably he got from Laforgue. Related: Anfractuosity (1590s).
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