periphrase

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.

But her further questioning was met with a frank, amiable, and simple brevity that was as puzzling as the most artful periphrase of tact.

From By Shore and Sedge by Harte, Bret

It is to be noted that the age of periphrase in verse was the age of crudities in prose.

From Les Misérables by Hapgood, Isabel Florence

The sun, which Dubartas, that classic ancestor of periphrase, had not yet dubbed the "Grand-duke of Candles," was none the less radiant and joyous on that account.

From Notre-Dame De Paris by Hapgood, Isabel Florence

So far as consistent with due precision, popular terms have been used in description, but not when such usage involved tedious periphrase.

From Handbook of the Trees of New England by Dame, Lorin Low

The mot propre, the calling of a spade a spade, was the great commandment of Romanticism; but it must be allowed that what was taken away in periphrase was made up in adjectives.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William" by Various