---
title: "Epithet and periphrasis"
description: "Epithet - a rhetorical term for an adjective (or adjective phrase) used to characterize a person or ..."
author: "Assel_91"
published: "2013-03-22T05:20:19+00:00"
modified: "2013-03-22T05:20:19+00:00"
locale: "ru"
canonical_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/epithet-and-periphrasis-342665"
markdown_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/epithet-and-periphrasis-342665/markdown"
site_name: "Yvision.kz"
---

# Epithet and periphrasis

> Epithet - a rhetorical term for an adjective (or adjective phrase) used to characterize a person or ...

**Epithet** - a rhetorical term for an adjective (or adjective phrase) used to characterize a person or thing.

 

*Examples:*

- I had reached a delicate corner.

- The idle road stretched for miles.

- All I can say is that he had an honest end.

 

Semantically epithets split into:
- Associated (wide sea)

- Unassociated (bootless cries)

- Fixed (happy birthday)

 

Structurally epithets split into:
- Simple (careful attention)

- Compound (cloud-shapen giant)

- Phrase (I-am-not-that-kind-of-girl look)

- Reversed (a hook of a nose)

- Transferred (merry hours)

- Two-step (an unnaturally mild day)

- String of epithets (good for nothing brute)

![Epithet and periphrasis](http://storage.yvision.kz/images/user/assel_91/0X0F3wMhqiEymiy3v5GBY7YB00V5y0.gif)

- is circumlocution, talking around the subject rather than directly what perhaps might be said in the circumstances.

 

*Examples:*

- It is not that James is welcome or otherwise, or that he is sometimes here or not. I do wonder, though, if he might be thinking what it's all about. (= I don't like James)

- When I am with you, my toes tingle and my knees are weak. The world is a better place altogether and I find myself giving my fortune to beggars, and I am a beggar before you, craving a smile, a whim. (= I love you)

 

[http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/figures_speech/periphrasis.htm](http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/figures_speech/periphrasis.htm)

[http://article.ranez.ru/id/117/](http://article.ranez.ru/id/117/)

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Source: [https://yvision.kz/post/epithet-and-periphrasis-342665](https://yvision.kz/post/epithet-and-periphrasis-342665)