periphrastic
Americanadjective
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circumlocutory; roundabout.
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Grammar. noting a construction of two or more words having the same syntactic function as an inflected word, as of Mr. Smith in the son of Mr. Smith, which is equivalent to Mr. Smith's in Mr. Smith's son.
adjective
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employing or involving periphrasis
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expressed in two or more words rather than by an inflected form of one: used esp of a tense of a verb where the alternative element is an auxiliary verb. For example, He does go and He will go involve periphrastic tenses
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of periphrastic
1795–1805; < Greek periphrastikós, derivative of periphrázein to use periphrasis. See peri-, phrase, -tic
Explanation
Periphrastic writing is unnecessarily convoluted, confusing, and wordy. It’s like it wants to confuse you. A periphrastic instruction manual can make it nearly impossible to figure out how your new TV works. Legal briefs and medical textbooks are two examples of written works that are almost always periphrastic. Your class president's speech might also be periphrastic, and so might the recipe for your grandma's favorite French pastry, if she adds a bit about the café she first had it in before telling you how long to bake it. The Greek root is periphrazein, "speak in a roundabout way," which combines peri-, "round about" and phrazein, "to express."
Vocabulary lists containing 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
Though the story cannot pretend to support the cause of morality, the style of this piece is unusually clear and straightforward, sometimes suitably periphrastic, but never inflated.
From The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood by Whicher, George Frisbie
Using these as auxiliaries the finite verb makes a whole series of periphrastic tenses.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 6 "Groups, Theory of" to "Gwyniad" by Various
He might be described as the last of the periphrastic humorists.
From Old and New Masters by Lynd, Robert
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.
