---
title: "periphrasis"
description: "periphrasis A roundabout way of referring to something by means of several words instead of naming ..."
author: "miramussina"
published: "2013-03-17T10:12:17+00:00"
modified: "2013-03-17T10:12:17+00:00"
locale: "ru"
canonical_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/periphrasis-342710"
markdown_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/periphrasis-342710/markdown"
site_name: "Yvision.kz"
---

# periphrasis

> periphrasis A roundabout way of referring to something by means of several words instead of naming ...

# periphrasis

A roundabout way of referring to something by means of several words instead of naming it directly in a single word or phrase. Commonly known as ‘circumlocution’, periphrasis is often used in euphemisms like passed away for ‘died’, but can have a more emphatic effect in poetry, as in the use of kennings. It was especially cultivated by 18th-century poets whose principle of decorum discouraged them from using commonplace words: thus fish were called the finny tribe, and in Robert Blair's poem ‘The Grave’ (1743) a telescope is the sight-invigorating tube. The 17th-century French fashion for préciositécultivated periphrasis to excess.

 

http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100317925

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Source: [https://yvision.kz/post/periphrasis-342710](https://yvision.kz/post/periphrasis-342710)