Word of the Day: Anfractuous

Plots and paths can be anfractuous. They twist and turn but do not break. Never mind that the English word comes ultimately from the Latin verb frangere, meaning "to break." (Frangere is also the source of fracture, fraction, fragment, and frail.) But one of the steps between frangere and anfractuous is Latin anfractus, meaning "coil, bend." The prefix an- here means "around." At first, anfractuous was all about ears and the auditory canal's anfractuosity, that is, its being curved rather than straight. Anfractuous has been around for centuries, without a break, giving it plenty of time to wind its way into other applications; e.g., there can be an anfractuous thought process or an anfractuous shoreline.