1896, Robert Barr, From Whose Bourne, ch. 9:She fled, running like a deer, doubling and turning through alleys and back streets until by a very roundabout road she reached her own room.
1921, P. G. Wodehouse, Indiscretions of Archie, ch. 17:"Really, Bill, I think your best plan would be to go straight to father and tell him the whole thing.—You don't want him to hear about it in a roundabout way."
2001 Dec. 3, Jim Rutenberg, "Rather Reports Another War," New York Times (retrieved 3 April 2014)Mr. Rather flew to the area in a roundabout fashion, first landing in Bahrain, from there flying to Islamabad and then heading to Kabul by land.
2011, Golgotha Press (ed.), 50 Classic Philosophy Books, ISBN 9781610425957, (Google preview):Descartes is compelled to fall back upon a curious roundabout argument to prove that there is a world. He must first prove that God exists, and then argue that God would not deceive us into thinking that it exists when it does not.
1706, John Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, item 3.3:The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call a large, sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question.
