circumlocutions

Noun

circumlocution (countable and uncountable, plural circumlocutions)

1. (uncountable) A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus
   • 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.1553, Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique […] , page 198
2. (uncountable) Unnecessary use of extra words to express an idea, such as a pleonastic phrase (sometimes driven by an attempt at emphatic clarity) or a wordy substitution (the latter driven by euphemistic intent, pedagogic intent, or sometimes loquaciousness alone).
3. (uncountable) Necessary use of a phrase to circumvent either a vocabulary fault (of speaker or listener) or a lexical gap, either monolingually or in translation.
   • 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).
4. (countable) An instance of such usage; a roundabout expression, whether an inadvisable one or a necessary one.