If something—such as a path, route, or journey—is described as circuitous, it is not straight, short, and direct, but rather takes a circular or winding course. Circuitous can also describe speech or writing that is not said or done simply or clearly.

// He took a circuitous route to town, stopping at several of his favorite shops even though it added minutes and miles to his trip.

// While either method will yield the correct answer, one is far less circuitous and therefore considered superior.

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“… like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, Ms. Lakey took a circuitous path to open a psychedelic community center. It involved a stint in the Amazon rainforest, a pen-pal in a maximum security federal prison and an auspicious meeting at a sushi restaurant in New Mexico.” — Rachel Nuwer, The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2023

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the titular hero Bilbo Baggins takes a circuitous route to the Lonely Mountain, which he helps to reclaim from a monstrous dragon. Although he successfully arrives there—and returns home again—we do not use the adjective circuitous to suggest that his path traces a perfect circle. We’ll get straight to it: although both circuitous and its relative circuit share roots in circus, the Latin word for “circle” (and ancestor of the English words circle and circus), neither need conjure something shaped like, say, a ring. Just as the noun circuit can refer to an indirect route, circuitous describes routes which can appear circular when mapped, but can also be jagged, squiggly, etc. The point is that a journey such as Bilbo’s is not straight, short, or direct, but rather rambling. When used figuratively, circuitous describes something that is not said or done simply and clearly; an example might be a rambling speech about manners in dangerous situations when a direct “Never laugh at live dragons” would suffice.