ADJECTIVE
-
roundabout and unnecessarily wordy
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,/ Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle/ With words and meanings.
had a preference for circumlocutious (or circumlocutory) rather than forthright expression
How To Use periphrastic In A Sentence
- Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr. Gunn's Essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me. The Waverley
- I almost said "periphrastic" -- ways of putting simple thoughts into words. VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol III No 3
- Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr. Gunn's Essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me. The Waverley
- Moreover, there are not wanting in these poems instances of the term signore, or lord, applied to the beloved lady; which is one of the many periphrastical expressions used by the Romance poets to indicate their mistress. The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti
- Most adverbs allow only periphrastic comparison (happily/more happily/most happily), but a few are suppletive: badly/worse/worst; well/better/best.
- Most finite verbal forms diachronically derive from nominalizations and periphrastic constructions with auxiliary verbs.
- But without further tyranny over my readers, or display of the extent of my own reading, I shall content myself with borrowing a single incident from the memorable hunting at Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr. Gunn's Essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me. Waverley: or, 'Tis sixty years since
- In journalism, short and clear is better than long and wordy; reporters generally don't have the space or time to reach for periphrastic phrasings when something more direct is available.
- Yes, passive periphrastics were familiar when I got to them in Latin (Carthago delenda est) all because of Mortimer. Rumpole at rest
- In the sentence “Where can I get scrod?”, the cabbie is apparently taking “get scrod” as the periphrastic passive voice of “screw”. The Volokh Conspiracy » More on Information About Prostitution
