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

There is incomparably more beauty and force in expressing the energy of the Verb, with its personal relation and concomitant circumstances, in one word, than by a periphrasis of pronouns and auxiliaries.

From Elements of Gaelic Grammar by Stewart, Alexander

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