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

Constant circumlocution produces an affected and heavy style; occasionally, skilful periphrasis conduces both to beauty and to simplicity.

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

All transitive verbs involve the notion of cause as activity, and would have to be replaced by some cumbrous periphrasis before this notion could be eliminated.

From Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

Robertson was, perhaps, the first man to adapt the polished periphrases of the pulpit to historical generalization.

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

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

In literature such “barbarisms” were avoided as far as possible, and were replaced by Greek periphrases.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel" by Various

Later, śḏm-f is ordinarily expressed by periphrases; but by the loss of n, śḏm-n-f became itself sdm-f, which is the ordinary past in demotic.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 1 "Edwardes" to "Ehrenbreitstein" by Various

In ordinary conversation do not seek periphrases, subtleties, or figures of speech.

From George Washington's Rules of Civility Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway by Moncure Daniel Conway