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

His classical fancy, his elegant turn for periphrasis and his venomous sting alike made him the idol of that urbane age.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various

Yet, with whatever periphrasis she wrapped it round, the resolve was not to be expressed with a pen.

From Carnival by Compton MacKenzie

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

But Mr. Frazer has remarked that periphrases for sacred beasts, like ‘Big Feet’ for Bear, are not uncommon. 

From Modern Mythology by Andrew Lang

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 Alexander Maclaren

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