Circuity
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A circuitous plan; a roundabout way of doing something. countable
"It may here suffice to add that, compared with the formalities, the fictions, and the circuities of legal assurances, they surprise us with a simplicity and directness of purpose which would satisfy the most zealous advocate for these desirable qualities […]"
- 2 The state or quality of being circuitous. uncountable
"By adding up all squared values and by dividing the total by the number of vertices we get a number indicating the degree of circuity of the transportation network relative to the given vortex."
- 3 A measure of the ratio of road miles to air miles between two locations. countable
"Total average circuities for the years 1947 and 1950 were estimated as 14 and 13 per cent, respectively, and the overall circuity for the commodity groups in 1947 was 13 per cent for products of agriculture, 8 per cent for animals and products […]"
Example
More examples"It may here suffice to add that, compared with the formalities, the fictions, and the circuities of legal assurances, they surprise us with a simplicity and directness of purpose which would satisfy the most zealous advocate for these desirable qualities […]"
Etymology
From circuit + -y.
More for "circuity"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.