Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having the nature of or characterized by periphrasis.
- adj. Grammar Constructed by using an auxiliary word rather than an inflected form; for example, of father is the periphrastic possessive case of father but father's is the inflected possessive case, and did say is the periphrastic past tense of say but said is the inflected past tense.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having the character of or characterized by periphrasis; circumlocutory; expressing or expressed in more words than are necessary.
Wiktionary
- adj. Expressed in more words than are necessary.
- adj. Indirect in naming an entity; circumlocutory.
- adj. Characterized by periphrase or circumlocution.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Expressing, or expressed, in more words than are necessary; characterized by periphrase; circumlocutory.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. roundabout and unnecessarily wordy
Examples
“I almost said "periphrastic" -- ways of putting simple thoughts into words.”
“Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr. Gunn's Essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me.”
“But without further tyranny over my readers, or display of the extent of my own reading, I shall content myself with borrowing a single incident from the memorable hunting at Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr. Gunn's essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me.”
“But without further tyranny over my readers, or display of the extent of my own reading, I shall content myself with borrowing a single incident from the memorable hunting at Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr. Gunn's Essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me.”
“Embedded in a clause, with regard to and its brethren are increasingly overworked, leading to a weak and periphrastic style.”
“In the sentence “Where can I get scrod?”, the cabbie is apparently taking “get scrod” as the periphrastic passive voice of “screw”.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » More on Information About Prostitution
“Yet, just as the periphrastic construction of de gustibus non disputandum est suggests both in Latin and Kant's”
Contention and Contestation: Aesthetic Culture in Kant and Bourdieu
“Nevertheless, the language has adapted other periphrastic ways of expressing the idea that is put across in other languages by a subjunctive.”
“If, as I guess, you're going for "I don't want you here, go away", I suggest using a passive periphrastic: "sed non hic manendus es.”
“If this oration appear rather long for the occasion, the reader must recollect that Captain MacTurk had in all probability the trouble of translating it from the periphrastic language of Ossian, in which it was originally conceived in his own mind.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘periphrastic’.
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Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7762 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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D4Divine's list
idiosyncratic, unfathomable, easement, plenary, trenchant, extracurially, periphrastic, prima facie, usurp, vacuous, unctuous, recapitulate and 16 more...
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Language, words, letters
backronym, Logogriph, logodaedaly, Acrostic, tmesis, pleonasm, sesquipedality, periphrasis, peroration, solecism, longueur, periphrastic and 8 more...
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Words that have gone out of fashion
words are fashionable -wane and wax - in usage. This is an open list of those words now out of fashion.
marconigram, flapper, bully, glockenspiel, periphrastic, bouffant, cackle, oldfangled, brigadoon, nohow, cat-salt, indecorous and 39 more...
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Words are my Friends
words i like
sesquipedelian, periphrastic, prolixity, verbose, verbiage, squeezer
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words that describe me
periphrastic, equivocal, doldrums, weird, labyrinthine, logophile, naive
chained_bear "Latin, which you had anticipated would be a breeze, had been especially difficult.... Why, you thought in your head, was the subjunctive so darn hard? Why hadn't you ever heard of the passive periphrastic?"
—Brian David Mooney, "SPQR," The Cincinnati Review, 6.1 (Summer 2009) Jul 22, 2009
seanahan This word means overly wordy? It should be our new motto.
BTW, I think this is like the 4th or 5th word I've suggested as our motto. If I could find them all, I would make a list. Oct 28, 2007
beatricks wordy! Oct 27, 2007