These channels are in places narrow and tortuous. It lies behind the facial artery and follows a less tortuous course. Aurally it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and tortuous. Tortuosity is a property of a curve being tortuous (twisted; having many turns). It is known for its tortuous path to the spleen. This happens partially because of tortuous path and pressure drop. He himself gallops in on a flying horse almost half way through the tortuous proceedings. Trepanation led through a tortuous course to "psychosurgery". They continued writing even as his marriage followed its brief though tortuous course. She described the process as being "equally enjoyable and tortuous". Samael is called the Slant Serpent, and Lilith is called the Tortuous Serpent. He was sentenced to death in a tortuous way. It is rather tortuous to listen to. Thus, progress towards restoring the power-sharing institutions was slow and tortuous. The stems are woody, tortuous, with short, horizontal rooting branches.