(uncountable) A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:
Used in a Sentence
circumlocutions
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for circumlocutions.
Editorial note
Do longer sentences mean better ideas, or are they just circumlocutions and embellishments?
Examples17
Definitions4
Parts of speech1
Quick take
(uncountable) A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of circumlocutions gathered in one view.
(countable) An instance of such usage; a roundabout expression, whether an inadvisable one or a necessary one.
(uncountable) Unnecessary use of extra words to express an idea, such as a pleonastic phrase (sometimes driven by an attempt at emphatic clarity) or a wordy substitution (the latter driven by euphemistic intent, pedagogic intent, or sometimes loquaciousness alone).
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for circumlocutions.
noun
(uncountable) A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:
noun
(countable) An instance of such usage; a roundabout expression, whether an inadvisable one or a necessary one.
noun
(uncountable) Unnecessary use of extra words to express an idea, such as a pleonastic phrase (sometimes driven by an attempt at emphatic clarity) or a wordy substitution (the latter driven by euphemistic intent, pedagogic intent, or sometimes loquaciousness alone).
noun
(uncountable) Necessary use of a phrase to circumvent either a vocabulary fault (of speaker or listener) or a lexical gap, either monolingually or in translation.
Example sentences
Do longer sentences mean better ideas, or are they just circumlocutions and embellishments?
So even people who are aware of the old distinctions need to use the modern circumlocutions to communicate clearly.
Then again, it can be hard to decode his exact subtext from under all the polite circumlocutions.
It all feels like their only goal is circumlocutions over the subset of contemporary glyphs they know?
Capitalism is circumlocutions of long dead people who provided little to society but the sound of their voice, vacuous writings.
To which the only workaround would be doing some circumlocutions specifically to avoid the tail-call recognition.
A predict a lot of circumlocutions about AI but most people not noticing since they blindly follow the TV/politics as-is anyway.
But PyPy lets my simple scripts punch above their weight without any extra circumlocutions.
Why should Jane Austen, with her painfully circumlocutions, be more academically welcome than that woman (forget her name) who wrote 50 shades of gay?
Oh you memorized the circumlocutions and dialectic of some long dead physicist.
If you were to express this at the class level, you'd need awkward circumlocutions like the Builder pattern, comments on methods, or friend member functions.
Nothing new - from Biblical times, people have used circumlocutions.
Quote examples
The obfuscatory circumlocutions known as "HR speak" or "BS" are reviled, and so are foolish compliments.
"Professional" language is usually very timid and full of circumlocutions as the primary goal is to not say anything that anyone may find offensive.
It's not some shocking interpretation to say that, when you find yourself looking for circumlocutions and code words to avoid directly saying the word "drugs", you know you're helping drug smugglers smuggle drugs.
Maybe an llm could associate "die" to "unalive" and treat them the same way for the purpose of advertiser demonetization; time will tell and as censorship tightens the circumlocutions will broaden.
Proper noun examples
Circumlocutions are born out of ideas without words to express them.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use circumlocutions in a sentence?
Do longer sentences mean better ideas, or are they just circumlocutions and embellishments?
What does circumlocutions mean?
(uncountable) A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:
What part of speech is circumlocutions?
circumlocutions is commonly used as noun.