How to Use indirection in a Sentence

indirection

noun

• The stage seems set for a solemn farewell—the first in a series of sly indirections.
  — Giles Harvey, New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2026
• But your art is very much that of indirection, Benjamin.
  — Literary Hub, 6 Jan. 2026
• As soon as people have choices, the system has to have this indirection.
  — IEEE Spectrum, 29 Nov. 2023
• His essence has been captured by indirection, via a gigantic lifetime write-around.
  — Tom Zoellner, New York Times, 1 June 2018
• This might suggest that a truer study of the psyche and its place in the world could be conducted via indirection or obliquity.
  — Matthew Bevis, Harper’s Magazine , 16 Feb. 2022
• What was once done by indirection and guile is now carried with the high hand, in the face of day, at the mouth of the cannon and by the edge of the sabre of the nation.
  — Jake Lundberg, The Atlantic, 12 Feb. 2026
• The light of Ulster traveled not by particle or wave but by indirection, hint and rumor.
  — Jennifer Egan, New York Times, 26 June 2017
• Antrim’s writing here is brilliant in its indirection and compression.
  — David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 2021
• My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge or awareness comes to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection.
  — Hillel Italie, Washington Post, 3 Sep. 2017
• My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge or awareness comes to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection.
  — Hillel Italie, chicagotribune.com, 4 Sep. 2017
• My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge or awareness comes to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection.
  — Hillel Italie, Philly.com, 5 Sep. 2017
• The nearly plotless story snares us through indirection to produce a pleasingly dark collage.
  — Claude Peck, Star Tribune, 23 Oct. 2020
• The indirection is not purposeless; Edelman is building the service roads to his main argument.
  — Jesse Green, New York Times, 27 June 2023
• Here, the explanation for such caution and indirection is straightforward and compelling.
  — Peter Skerry, Foreign Affairs, 8 Apr. 2017
• Because the women can’t vote or hold public office, their improvements get implemented through a mixture of trickery and indirection.
  — Deborah Williams july 14, Literary Hub, 14 July 2025
• Dutiful sons often revere their fathers for their instruction in the ways of the world—by direction and indirection, sterling example and train wreck.
  — Edward Kosner, WSJ, 5 May 2022
• Unlike Shakespeare, Greenblatt does not choose a strategy of indirection.
  — Glenn C. Althschuler, Philly.com, 18 May 2018
• The letter is included in the report and is an exquisite piece of clerical indirection and equivocation.
  — Paul Elie, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2020
• In fairness, elaboration could detract from Magid’s mode of storytelling, which relies a lot on indirection and leaving things unsaid.
  — Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 26 June 2019
• Multiple layers of obfuscation and indirection are standard in this criminal realm.
  — Rahul Kashyap, Quartz, 15 Jan. 2020
• His direction is the art of indirection, something borne out by other films in the MOMA retrospective.
  — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 17 Apr. 2024
• The title page of the 31-sheet mimeographed pamphlet was designed to hide the contents of the publication and perhaps make a joke about the flowery indirection of the Arabic language.
  — Steve Hindy, Foreign Affairs, 27 Aug. 2015
• The show loves to lampoon moral inconsistencies of Victorian England with Python-like indirection.
  — Hugh Hunter, Philly.com, 4 May 2018
• This is music that comes packed in velvet under any circumstances — the melodies liquid and slightly droopy, the harmonies tinged with indirection — and Bullock’s performance delivered a full helping of sybaritic delight.
  — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Mar. 2018
• Their plan for stealing it right out from under her involves everything from impersonating a Vanity Fair photographer to having Daniel crash the party with a big speech that’s a masterpiece of indirection.
  — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 11 Nov. 2025
• Axios-ese strikes me as particularly unsuited to corporate communication, which for better or worse is packed deliberately with euphemism and indirection and exaggerated diplomacy.
  — Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 26 Sep. 2022
• Wong often proceeds by indirection, and the obvious contrast of this first meeting — between Big Labor’s encumbrances and Roosevelt’s dexterity — made, in retrospect, a deliberate point.
  — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New York Times, 23 July 2016