periphrasis

Prince Bumpo, the heir to the throne, is a mooncalf who mistakes fairy tales for real life, speaks in Elizabethan periphrasis and murmurs to himself: “If only I were a white prince!”

From New York Times ● Sep. 9, 2020

This periphrasis so fascinated Charles W. Morton, now the associate editor of the Atlantic, that he began collecting examples of "Elongated Yellow Fruit" writing.

From Time Magazine Archive

Oddly, they all speak the same puckish periphrasis.

From Time Magazine Archive

Personification and periphrasis were their favorite mannerisms: Collins's Odes were largely addressed to abstractions, such as Fear, Pity, Liberty, Mercy, and Simplicity.

From Brief History of English and American Literature by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

What hasty words, I wonder, of the rude and haughty admiral were represented by this sonorous periphrasis?

From Through East Anglia in a Motor Car by Vincent, J. E. (James Edmund)

But the reason why Christianity uses these periphrases or metaphors, these euphemisms for death, is the opposite of the reason why the world uses them.

From Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) by Maclaren, Alexander

The only person who ventured to enter his room was Don Rosendo, who talked to him in a kind and dignified style, adorned with periphrases and florid periods befitting his character as a writer.

From The Fourth Estate, vol. 2 by Palacio Vald?s, Armando

These double and recurring epithets of Homer are a softer form of the quaint Northern periphrases, which make the sea the 'swan's bath,' gold, the 'dragon's hoard,' men, the 'ring-givers,' and so on.

From The Odyssey Done into English prose by Lang, Andrew

He gradually acquired a reputation as a poet by his epistles, in which things are not called by their ordinary names but are hinted at by elaborate periphrases.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 10 "David, St" to "Demidov" by Various

The dates of certain papers complete the discreet periphrases of Bonnœil.

From The House of the Combrays by Le Notre, G., [pseud.]