periphrasis

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.

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

If invention ceased to create, it must necessarily trick out what was commonplace in ingenuities of decorative periphrasis.

From A History of French Literature Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. by Gosse, Edmund

And with this happy periphrasis, our friend admitted his defeat.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 28, February, 1860 by Various