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sinuous

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Having many curves, bends, or turns; serpent-like and flexible, used in nature verse to describe winding rivers or graceful movement.

Detailed Definition
In this poem, sinuous describes the rills as twisting and flowing in graceful curves. The word is literary rather than everyday, and it helps create the poem’s lush, flowing landscape.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Sinuous” describes something winding, curving, or moving with smooth, snake-like flexibility; Poe’s “gardens bright with sinuous rills” makes streams seem graceful and alive; A sinuous line of verse may coil through enjambment instead of ending sharply at each line; “A sinuous road unrolled through the dunes” uses the adjective to evoke elegant, continuous curves
Additional Notes
The adjective in the line is less common in ordinary speech and may prompt readers to look it up.; Found in the poem, Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Also Known As
curving winding serpentine slithy
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