circumbendibus
Americannoun
-
circumbendibuses
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of circumbendibus
1675–85; circum- + bend 1 + Latin -ibus ablative plural ending
Explanation
Anything circumbendibus is rambling and roundabout. If you’re late for school, you could explain to the teacher that construction work blocked the road, forcing you to take a circumbendibus that added half a mile to your drive. The teacher may or may not be impressed. The word circumbendibus isn't used as much as it used to be. It was more common in the 17th and 18th centuries. A circumbendibus can be any roundabout route, or it could be something said in a roundabout way. The word can also be used as an adjective: For example, you might read, “After his lengthy, circumbendibus digression, he finally got to the point of the story." The word is built from the combining form circum-, "around"; the English word bend; and a deliberately misapplied Latin ending, -ibus, to humorously fancy it up.
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.
See Examples For:
It was not for an hour afterwards--I needed a long circumbendibus before I could take heart to bring this melancholy business to an end--that I found myself knocking at Sebastian's door.
From Barbarossa and Other Tales by Paul Heyse
And believe I will just fancy I see this place too; it sounds rather a "circumbendibus" for us this journey.
From From Edinburgh to India & Burmah by W. G. (William Gordon) Burn Murdoch
YOU know your tangled legs wouldn't take you straight up the trail, and you had to make a circumbendibus.
From The Three Partners by Bret Harte
Footnote 1: Schalttag, lit. 'intercalary day'--used of the 29th of February in leap years--impossible to translate except by a circumbendibus.
From The Wine-ghosts of Bremen by Wilhelm Hauff
“Ah! you mean for us to make a circumbendibus over the ridge, and attack ’em from the back-side.
From The Yellow Chief by Mayne Reid
And do others like it if you will take circumbendibuses for sound's sake!
From The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. by Thomas Carlyle
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
