1
as in ambiguity
deliberate evasion in speech
rather than answering the question directly, he resorted to circumlocution, which made her suspect that he was hiding something
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in repetition
the use of too many words to express an idea
your papers have to be five pages long, but that's five pages of substance, not circumlocution
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Recent Examples of circumlocution
Their circumlocutions were as entrancing as their ability to find the most precisely ironic words for difficult-to-name realities.
—
Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2025
Here, instead, she’s swayed by a dead Diana softly squeezing her hand and kindly hinting — the dead Diana is an ace at tactful circumlocution — that now is the time to show a mourning nation some emotion.
—Tom Gliatto, Peoplemag, 16 Nov. 2023
This year, House Republicans unveiled a new Conservative Climate Caucus that, in a fascinating circumlocution, sort of recognizes that fossil fuels are causing the planet to warm.
—Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 2 Nov. 2022
Powell’s statement yesterday (September 22) is the masterpiece of its type, building upon fifteen months of this playful circumlocution, downshifting into bureaucratic blandness.
—George Calhoun, Forbes, 23 Sep. 2021
But the national crisis in policing and the response to it isn’t a matter of arid elite debate or familiar political circumlocution and compromise anymore.
—David Roth, The New Republic, 11 June 2020
By condensing Balzac’s opus to a few paragraphs, Barthelme was having a laugh not just at his predecessor’s genteel circumlocution—his tendency to describe buildings and manufacturing procedures and family trees in lavish detail—but also at the conventions of novelistic mimesis itself.
—Giles Harvey, The New York Review of Books, 23 Apr. 2020
These circumlocutions are meant to emphasize the fact that Africans traded like chattel were not, in their essence, slaves but human beings.
—Lionel Shriver, Harper's magazine, 25 Nov. 2019
Although incredibly popular, with 60% approval ratings, Ahok was considered by many to be a divisive figure, by virtue both of his minority status and of his bluntness, which ran counter to Javanese traditions of deference and circumlocution.
—The Economist, 12 Apr. 2018
Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2025
Here, instead, she’s swayed by a dead Diana softly squeezing her hand and kindly hinting — the dead Diana is an ace at tactful circumlocution — that now is the time to show a mourning nation some emotion.
—Tom Gliatto, Peoplemag, 16 Nov. 2023
This year, House Republicans unveiled a new Conservative Climate Caucus that, in a fascinating circumlocution, sort of recognizes that fossil fuels are causing the planet to warm.
—Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 2 Nov. 2022
Powell’s statement yesterday (September 22) is the masterpiece of its type, building upon fifteen months of this playful circumlocution, downshifting into bureaucratic blandness.
—George Calhoun, Forbes, 23 Sep. 2021
But the national crisis in policing and the response to it isn’t a matter of arid elite debate or familiar political circumlocution and compromise anymore.
—David Roth, The New Republic, 11 June 2020
By condensing Balzac’s opus to a few paragraphs, Barthelme was having a laugh not just at his predecessor’s genteel circumlocution—his tendency to describe buildings and manufacturing procedures and family trees in lavish detail—but also at the conventions of novelistic mimesis itself.
—Giles Harvey, The New York Review of Books, 23 Apr. 2020
These circumlocutions are meant to emphasize the fact that Africans traded like chattel were not, in their essence, slaves but human beings.
—Lionel Shriver, Harper's magazine, 25 Nov. 2019
Although incredibly popular, with 60% approval ratings, Ahok was considered by many to be a divisive figure, by virtue both of his minority status and of his bluntness, which ran counter to Javanese traditions of deference and circumlocution.
—The Economist, 12 Apr. 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for circumlocution
Noun
-
The composition has many hallmarks of surrealism, including dream logic – the strange, flowing and often illogical progression of images reflecting the unpredictable nature of dreams – metamorphosis and psychic ambiguity.—
Sally Jane Brown,
The Conversation,
29 Sep. 2025
-
The ambiguity of authorship is meant to unsettle the reading of the text.—
Lana Lin
September 29,
Literary Hub,
29 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Rather than getting caught in a web of repetition, Matheny wanted to spin some new ideas that felt natural.—
DeVonne Goode,
Parents,
1 Oct. 2025
-
But for the sake of avoiding repetition, let’s shout out some other players.—
Maddie Hartley,
Kansas City Star,
28 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
The clip ends with Snoop doing a snow shuffle to the Olympic theme.—
Gil Kaufman,
Billboard,
29 Sep. 2025
-
All is quiet except for the shuffle of hooves, as the mounts shift the weight of their riders and their heavy armor.—
Greg Grandin
September 23,
Literary Hub,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
The rest of the statement was full of equally cowardly equivocation.—
Sahar Mustafah
August 27,
Literary Hub,
27 Aug. 2025
-
Their robust negations appeared to put both them and their American hosts on the right side of history, compared with writers in the unfree world of authoritarian regimes, who seemed to have been permanently tainted by lies, equivocations, and evasions.—
Pankaj Mishra,
Harpers Magazine,
16 July 2025
Noun
-
Flatulent describes inflated, pretentious writing; garrulity describes excessive talkativeness.—
Gary Gilson,
Star Tribune,
31 Oct. 2020
Noun
-
This working prompt injection came only after much trial and error, explaining the verbosity and the detail in it.—
Dan Goodin,
ArsTechnica,
18 Sep. 2025
-
The truth is, there is rarely a Merritt Wever or an Adrien Brody in awards speeches—extreme cases of brevity or verbosity that stun both those in the room and at home.—
Shirley Li,
The Atlantic,
15 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Kinder, like Gimbel, stressed that diffusion takes time.—
Eva Roytburg,
Fortune,
2 Oct. 2025
-
The team gathered regional body-fat measurements, via dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans, and a combination of MRI scans covering structure, network activity (resting-state fMRI) and white-matter wiring (diffusion), from the UK Biobank.—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
28 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Just as the limitless space of web text tempts writers to indulge their logorrhea, the blinking, ever-transmuting, cartoonish interface of web browsers prevents would-be readers from paying attention to anything for longer than about 7 seconds.—
Barton Swaim,
WSJ,
19 Sep. 2022
-
Nor has Musk kept his Twitter logorrhea in check in other respects.—
Michael Hiltzik,
Los Angeles Times,
28 Apr. 2022
Cite this Entry
“Circumlocution.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/circumlocution. Accessed 8 Oct. 2025.
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