Definition of periphrasis in English:

nounPlural periphrases

• 1The use of indirect and circumlocutory speech or writing.

  Example sentences

  • ‘Can one be an avid fan of a book - or is this lazy-minded periphrasis for ‘favourite’?’
  • ‘The parodic cupid's dart is described with the maximum of periphrasis compatible with not actually disguising what the organ is, ‘a piece of flesh, the characteristic part of a barrow-pig’.’
  • ‘Such recondite periphrasis brought its own reward.’
  • ‘When Johnson refers to his mind as ‘Summus… celsa dominator [in] arce ’, the elaborate periphrasis mockingly dramatizes the blustery ‘empty force’ of his mind's pretensions.’
  • ‘In order to refer to the activity denoted by the F-word, it is necessary to engage in circumlocution or periphrasis.’

  Synonyms

  wordiness, verboseness, loquacity, garrulity, talkativeness, volubility, expansiveness, babbling, blathering, waffling, prattling, prating, jabbering, gushing

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1count noun An indirect and circumlocutory phrase.
     ‘a rather pompous periphrasis’

     More example sentences

     • ‘Homeric glosses, along with scholarly neologisms and obscure periphrases, are prominent in his poetry.’
     • ‘This isn't what ‘ineffable’ means: she's using it as a fancy periphrasis for ‘unspeakable’, but its orientation is exactly the opposite.’
     • ‘Her dread is so great that at the end of her progress she does not even allow his name to pass her lips and uses periphrases to talk of him.’
     • ‘We intentional animals keep falling into the trap of mistaking the periphrases for the facts.’
     • ‘His deliberate translationese, his consciously awkward periphrases, and yes, his fart jokes suggest that all language, or all poetry, might be as artificial and arbitrary as his own: why not redo ‘Where are the snows of yesteryear?’’
  2. 1.2Grammar The use of separate words to express a grammatical relationship that is otherwise expressed by inflection, e.g. did go as opposed to went and more intelligent as opposed to cleverer.