[syn: devious, circuitous, roundabout]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
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, roundabout]
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, roundabout]
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,
roundabout]
2: a large, rotating machine with seats for children to ride or
amusement [syn: carousel, carrousel, merry-go-round,
roundabout, whirligig]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
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