Circumlocution vs. Periphrasis

Difference Between Circumlocution and Periphrasis

Circumlocutionnoun

The use of unnecessarily wordy language, especially in being vague or evasive.

Periphrasisnoun

The use of circumlocution.

Circumlocutionnoun

A roundabout or evasive expression

Circumlocutions like "go to the bathroom" are often used in place of words that are considered vulgar or indelicate.

Periphrasisnoun

A circumlocution.

Circumlocutionnoun

(uncountable) A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:

Periphrasisnoun

The use of a longer expression instead of a shorter one with a similar meaning, for example "I am going to" instead of "I will".

Circumlocutionnoun

(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).

Periphrasisnoun

(linguistics) Expressing a grammatical meaning (such as a tense) using a syntactic construction rather than morphological marking.

Language learners sometimes use periphrases like "did go" where a native speaker would use "went".Native speakers use periphrases like "did not go" where a language learner might use "went not".

Circumlocutionnoun

(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).