periphrastic

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 it seems to this reader, Rebecca becoming Maud also speaks to the preoccupation of this entire book: the periphrastic construction of identity itself.

From New York Times • Mar. 29, 2022

He misrepresents, distorts, bisects sentences and employs periphrastic phrases to make his points.

From Time Magazine Archive

But its fault even in that part is that he confounds the genius of the English language, making it periphrastic and literal, instead of elliptical and idiomatic.

From The Spirit of the Age Contemporary Portraits by Hazlitt, William

I've been a fighting character," he said, and this was a periphrastic way of referring to his old occupation in which he evidently took great pleasure; "but now I'm a Miracle.

From Faces and Places by Lucy, Henry W. (Henry William), Sir

This was supplied, in the common periphrastic manner, by the help of the preposition and the article.

From The Verbalist A Manual Devoted to Brief Discussions of the Right and the Wrong Use of Words and to Some Other Matters of Interest to Those Who Would Speak and Write with Propriety. by Osmun, Thomas Embly