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

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

In all inquiries the writer has found it necessary to use periphrasis or to appeal to some illustration.

From Unwritten Literature of Hawaii The Sacred Songs of the Hula by Nathaniel Bright Emerson

Circumlocution and periphrasis are roundabout ways of expressing thought; circumlocution is the more common, periphrasis the more technical word.

From English Synonyms and Antonyms With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions by James Champlin Fernald

These sagas are not to be so forgotten or disproved as to take away from poetry old periphrases which great skalds have been pleased with.

From The Younger Edda Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda by Rasmus Björn Anderson

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 simple, concrete phrases of daily speech had given way to stately periphrases; the rich and riotous vocabulary of earlier poetry had been replaced by one more decorous, measured, and high-sounding.

From Lady of the Lake by William Vaughn Moody

The philosophic pride of the eighteenth century was tickled by the use of general terms in description; the chosen periphrases are always more comprehensive than the names that they replace.

From Milton by Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

Why conceal his weaknesses in a cloud of periphrases?

From Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by George Saintsbury