Carolyn’s Word of the Day: Circumlocution, Day 4

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

CIRCUMLOCUTION
(sər · kəm · lō ’ kyü · shən)


Definition: the use of more words than necessary to express an idea; evasive speech

Example: The author’s tendency towards circumlocution made his theories difficult to assimilate. Of course, infrequently used words such as circumlocution would also make it difficult for most of us to understand his ideas.

Another Example: We sometimes resort to fluffy circumlocution, rather than speaking our truth, in an effort to avoid hurting a person’s feelings.

Synonyms: wordiness, verbiage, redundancy, verbosity, roundabout, indirectness, equivocation

Antonyms: conciseness, brevity, concision, directness, straightforwardness, candor, frankness, forthrightness