roundabout

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}]
    

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]
    

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]
    

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