circumlocution
Definition: Indirect or roundabout way of speaking
Brainypics - Create new Brainypic
Read more sentences using the word circumlocution.
Videos - Add Video
Videos that illustrate how to use the word circumlocution.
See how journalists use the word circumlocution in the news?
Famous writers using circumlocution in a sentence.
The New Fiction - By Henry Duff Traill
...And as to all your complaints of the monotony, the circumlocution, the ' common form ' of newspapers, why, faults of that kind seem hardly worth denouncing as depravations of English style ....
The Age of Innocence - By Edith Wharton
...There his wife, nearly twenty-six years ago, had broken to him, with a blushing circumlocution that would have caused the young women of the new generation to smile, the news that she was to have a child; and there their eldest boy, Dallas, too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter, had been christened by their old friend the Bishop of New York ,...
The count of Monte-Cristo - By Alexandre Dumas
...Sir, " said Madame de Saint-M éran, without using any circumlocution, and, as if fearing she had no time to lose, " you wrote to me concerning the marriage ot this child ? "...
The Last of the Mohicans - By James Fenimore Cooper
...After which he spoke of the expedition in which he was himself engaged, and intimated, though with sufficient delicacy and circumlocution, the expediency of bestowing on their relatives a portion of that wisdom for which they were so renowned ....
The Age of Innocence - By Edith Wharton, Philip M. Parker
...There his wife, nearly twenty-six years ago, had broken to him, with a blushing circumlocution that would have caused the young women of the new generation to smile, the news that she was to have a child; and there their eldest boy, Dallas, too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter, had been christened by their old friend the Bishop of New York ,...
The Portrait of a Lady - By Henry James
...Isabel 's aunt had told her, without circumlocution, that she had played too ingenious a part; and Madame Merle, who never quarrelled with any one, who appeared to think no one worth it, and who had performed the miracle of living, more or less, for several years with Mrs. Touchett and showing no symptom of irritation--Madame Merle now took a very high tone and declared...
The mill on the Floss - By George Eliot, Charles Henshaw Ward
...`` I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some money, " said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution ....
Mary Barton - By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Mrs Gaskell
...So without circumlocution she went and offered to take the sinking child ....
The Bacchae of Euripides - By Euripides, John Edwin Sandys
...In the present instance the singular is probably used because of the awkwardness of the circumlocution HfSoyfuvat tla v, especially as T j fíoves is virtually equivalent to a singular in sense ....
The Development of the English Novel - By Wilbur Lucius Cross
...His language was not free from the affectations of the romancers; even his friends dared tell him with caution and circumlocution that he was fond of the nursery phrase ....
Phineas redux - By Anthony Trollope
...Mr. Daubeny rose, and with much graceful and mysterious circumlocution asked the Prime Minister whether it was true that a member of the House had been arrested, and was now in confinement on the charge of having been concerned in the murder of the late much-lamented President of the Board of Trade ....
History of Prose Fiction - By John Colin Dunlop, Henry Wilson
...La all her under characters, Mrs. Radcliffe is extremely fond of delineating their circumlocution--their habit of answering from the point, or giving a needless detail of trivial circumstances, when the enquirer is on the gasp of expectation, and the utmost expedition is requisite ....
Ten Thousand a Year - By Samuel Warren
...Sir, I desire, that without so much circumlocution, you will come to the point ....