periphrasis
Example Sentences
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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
Happiness is with him an aim that we are at liberty to seek directly and without periphrasis.
From Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson by John Morley
Throughout the history of the language we note an increasing tendency to periphrasis; but there was no great advance towards precision before demotic.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 1 "Edwardes" to "Ehrenbreitstein" by Various
He that hath complex ideas without names for them, wants liberty and dispatch in his expressions, and is necessitated to use periphrases.
From An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 3 and 4 by John Locke
The only person who ventured to enter his room was Don Rosendo, who talked to him in a kind and dignified style, adorned with periphrases and florid periods befitting his character as a writer.
From The Fourth Estate, vol. 2 by Armando Palacio Vald?s
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
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
By reading the English, French, and German columns downwards, the reader will see how many different roots and periphrases these languages employ in order to express the same ideas.
From International Language Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar by Walter John Clark
Vocabulary lists containing periphrasis
Reading: Literature - Literary Devices & Figures of Speech - High School
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Rhetoric
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Around and Around: Peri
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