Something described as convoluted is very complicated and difficult to understand, or has many curves and turns.

// The speaker’s argument was so convoluted that most of the audience had trouble determining whether they were for or against the new policy.

// The route from the airport to the village was long and convoluted.

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“The publishing house had recently declined to publish my new book and one of their editors appeared in my inbox, asking for a blurb for an upcoming title. Because this felt awkward, I made a convoluted show of declining. So convoluted that my reply left several avenues for them to come back and ask again. Rather than isolate the issue in a clear way, I coughed up a blurb.” — Sloane Crosley, LitHub.com, 12 Mar. 2025

If you’ve ever felt your brain twisting itself into a pretzel while trying to follow a complicated or hard-to-follow line of reasoning, you’ll appreciate the relative simplicity of the adjective convoluted, which is perfect for describing head-scratchers (and pretzel-makers). Convoluted traces back to the Latin verb convolvere, meaning “to roll up, coil, or twist.” Originally, convoluted (like its predecessor in English, the verb convolute) was used in the context of things having literal convolutions—in other words, twisty things like intestines or a ram’s horns. Over time it expanded to figuratively describe things like arguments, plots, stories, logic, etc., that are intricate or feature many twists and turns that make them difficult to understand.