circumlocution
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From Latin circumlocūtiō (“the act of speaking around; circumlocution, periphrasis”). By surface analysis, circum- (“around”) + locution (“talk”), thus "getting around (a problem) in speaking or writing". Probably a calque of Ancient Greek περίφρασις (períphrasis, “periphrasis”).
Inflected forms:
form: circumlocutions
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: Circumlocution is a large deſcription either to ſette forth a thyng more gorgiouſlie, or els to hyde it, if the eares cannot beare the open ſpeakyng: or when with fewe woordes we cannot open our meanyng, to ſpeake it more largely.
His Majeſty leaves the choice to your ſelf, and requires from you a direct Anſwer without circumlocution or bargaining with him […]
gloss: A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
gloss: A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: A technical word, such as hyperkalemia or hypoallergenic, can be glossed for general audiences with a circumlocution, such as "high potassium level" or "less likely to cause allergies" (respectively).
It may seem quite straightforward to render line 15 metrically regular by means of a grammatical trick: "the style as bright as soul". However, the stylistic feature of the adjectival compound does not occur in isolation but is employed again in the following line, "dem Staubfaden himmelswüst", where a grammatical circumlocution in translation would be metrically disadvantageous. Both compounds, "seelenhell" as well as "himmelswüst", should therefore be translated as compounds. When Michael Hamburger remarks that German "lends itself to the formation of compound words in a way that English does not" (in Celan 1988: 24), he probably refers to nouns such as "Türspalt" or "Algenteilchen".
Linguistic horror vacui again, and lacuna: the blank part of a manuscript where the ink runs off the papyrus, and lexically the word missing from one language that must be bridged with circumlocution in translation.
gloss: An instance of such usage; a roundabout expression, whether an inadvisable one or a necessary one.
pos: noun
tags: countable
Synonyms: ambages
periphrasis
Related words: pleonasm
beat around the bush
go around the houses
euphemism
mince words
mince matters
equivocation
evasive
prevarication
hedge
waffle
Derived words: circumlocutional
circumlocutionary
circumlocutionist
circumlocutionize
circumlocution office
circumlocutious
circumlocutory
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: увъртане
roman: uvǎrtane
lang: Bulgarian
word: заобикалки
roman: zaobikalki
lang: Finnish
word: kiertely
lang: Finnish
word: jaarittelu
lang: Finnish
word: pyörittely
lang: French
word: périphrase
lang: French
word: circonlocution
lang: German
word: Umschweife
lang: Greek
word: περίφραση
roman: perífrasi
lang: Greek
word: πολυλογία
roman: polylogía
lang: Hungarian
word: köntörfalazás
lang: Hungarian
word: kertelés
lang: Italian
word: giro di parole
lang: Italian
word: perifrasi
lang: Norwegian
word: omsvøp
lang: Persian
word: اطناب
roman: etnâb
lang: Persian
word: درازگویی
roman: derâz-guyi
lang: Polish
word: oględna wypowiedź
lang: Portuguese
word: circunlocução
lang: Portuguese
word: circunlóquio
lang: Spanish
word: circunlocución
lang: Spanish
word: rodeos
lang: Spanish
word: ambages
lang: Spanish
word: circunloquio
lang: Swedish
word: omsvep
lang: Vietnamese
word: giải ngữ
lang: Vietnamese
word: ngữ giải thích