Roundabout

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Roundabout \Round"a*bout`\, a.
     1. Circuitous; going round; indirect; as, roundabout speech.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              We have taken a terrible roundabout road. --Burke.
        [1913 Webster]


  
     2. Encircling; enveloping; comprehensive. "Large, sound,
        roundabout sense." --Locke.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Roundabout \Round"a*bout`\, n.
     1. A large horizontal wheel or frame, commonly with wooden
        horses, etc., on which children ride; a merry-go-round; a
        carousel. [British] --Smart.
        [1913 Webster +PJC]
  
     2. A dance performed in a circle. --Goldsmith.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A short, close jacket worn by boys, sailors, etc.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. A state or scene of constant change, or of recurring labor
        and vicissitude. --Cowper.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     5. a {traffic circle}. [Chiefly British]
        [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  roundabout
       adj 1: marked by obliqueness or indirection in speech or conduct;
              "the explanation was circuitous and puzzling"; "a
              roundabout paragraph"; "hear in a roundabout way that
              her ex-husband was marrying her best friend" [syn: {circuitous}]
       2: deviating from a straight course; "a scenic but devious
          route"; "a long and circuitous journey by train and boat";
          "a roundabout route avoided rush-hour traffic" [syn: {devious},
           {circuitous}]
       n 1: a road junction at which traffic streams circularly around a
            central island; "the accident blocked all traffic at the
            rotary" [syn: {traffic circle}, {circle}, {rotary}]
       2: large mechanical apparatus with seats for children to ride
          on [syn: {carousel}, {carrousel}, {merry-go-round}, {whirligig}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  181 Moby Thesaurus words for "roundabout":
     Byzantine, Ferris wheel, O-shaped, ambages, ambagious, ambient,
     anfractuous, apparent, backhanded, balled up, bypass, carousel,
     chubby, chute-the-chutes, chutes, circling, circuit, circuitous,
     circular, circumambages, circumambient, circumbendibus,
     circumferential, circumflex, circumfluent, circumfluous,
     circumjacent, circumlocution, circumlocutional, circumlocutory,
     collateral, complex, complicated, confounded, confused, convoluted,
     convolutional, cortical, crabbed, daedal, detour, deviating,
     deviation, deviative, devious, digression, digressive, discursive,
     disk, elaborate, embracing, embrangled, encircling, enclosing,
     encompassing, enfolding, entangled, enveloping, environing,
     epidermic, evasive, excursion, excursive, exomorphic, exterior,
     external, extrinsic, flexuose, flexuous, flying horses, fouled up,
     fringe, helical, implicated, indirect, intricate, involute,
     involuted, involutional, involved, jaunt, junket, knotted,
     labyrinthian, labyrinthine, long, loused up, many-faceted, matted,
     mazy, meandering, meandrous, merry-go-round, messed up, mixed up,
     mucked up, multifarious, neighboring, oblique, open, orbital, out,
     out-of-the-way, outer, outermost, outing, outlying, outmost,
     outside, outstanding, outward, outward-facing, peripheral,
     periphrase, periphrasis, periphrastic, perplexed, pleonasm, plump,
     podgy, public, pudgy, ramified, redundancy, rivose, rivulose,
     roller, roller coaster, rolling stone, roly-poly, rotary, rotator,
     rotor, round, round trip, roundabout way, ruffled, runaround,
     rundle, sally, screwed up, seeming, seesaw, serpentine, sinuate,
     sinuose, sinuous, snaky, snarled, spiral, subtle, suburban,
     superficial, surface, surrounding, swing, tangled, tangly,
     tautology, teeter-totter, top, torsional, tortile, tortuous,
     traffic circle, tubby, turning, twisted, twisting, twisty,
     verbality, wheel, whip, whirlabout, whirler, whirligig, whorled,
     winding, wrapping, wreathlike, wreathy