periphrasis

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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

Oddly, they all speak the same puckish periphrasis.

From Time Magazine Archive

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

As that poem explains, his name could not be used in elegiac verse: hence the periphrasis in this passage.

From The Last Poems of Ovid by Akrigg, Mark Bear

"To make Baldassare laugh" became a stock periphrasis for the supreme degree of tragedy among his neighbours.

From Little Novels of Italy by Hewlett, Maurice Henry