periphrastic

alternative periphrasic

1. not comparableExpressed in more words than are necessary.

   He wrote a periphrastic love letter to his wife to patch up their relationship.

   3 more examples

   She was simply asked to express how she felt, but her response was periphrastic.

   As poetry it does not measure up to Aasen; as translation it is periphrastic, arbitrary, not at all faithful.

   1916, Martin Brown Ruud, An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway

   That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory/ A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion/ Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle / With words and meanings.

   1940, T. S. Eliot, East Coker

2. not comparableIndirect in naming an entity; circumlocutory.

   In writing, they deem it irreverent to express the Supreme Being [and] in conversation they generally use a periphrastic epithet, such as the All-Good.

   1871, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (published anonymously), The Coming Race, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons

3. not comparablegrammarCharacterized by periphrasis.

   “The daughter of the man” may be used as a periphrastic synonym for “the man’s daughter”.