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Indirect form of words; circumlocution. [R.] Has he given the lie, In circle, or oblique, or semicircle. J. Fletcher.

Going round in a circuit; roundabout; indirect; as, a circuitous road; a circuitous manner of accompalishing an end. -- Cir*cu"i*tous*ly, adv. -- Cir*cu"i*tous*ness, n.

A roundabout or indirect course; indirectness. [Obs.] S. Richardson.

A roundabout or indirect way. [Jocular] Goldsmith.

The use of many words to express an idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language; a periphrese. the plain Billingagate way of calling names . . . would save abundance of time lost by circumlocution. Swift. Circumlocution office, a term of riducle for a governmental office where business is delay…

Acting in an indirect way. If by direct or by collateral hand They find us touched, we will our kingdom give . . . To you in satisfaction. Shak.

In an indirect or subordinate manner; indirectly. The will hath force upon the conscience collaterally and indirectly. Jer. Taylor.

The transmission of a disease from one person to another, by direct or indirect contact.

municate by sending and receiving letters; -- followed by with. After having been long in indirect communication with the exiled family, he [Atterbury] began to correspond directly with the Pretender. Macualay.

g away gradually. [Corrosives] act either directly, by chemically destroying the part, or indirectly by causing inflammation and gangrene. Dunglison.

rity of thoughtful and sagacious men. Whewell. Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments. Shenstone.

tation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic.

the immediate sequence of reasoning from axiomatic or established premises; -- opposed to Indirect, or Negative, demonstration (called also reductio ad absurdum), in which the correct conclusion is an inference from the demonstration that any other hypothesis must be incorrect.

ny one quoted without change in its form; as, he said "I can not come;" -- correlative to indirect discourse, in which there is change of form; as, he said that he could not come. They are often called respectively by their Latin names, oratio directa, and oratio obliqua. -- Direct evidence (Law), evidence which is po…

In a direct manner; in a straight line or course. "To run directly on." Shak. Indirectly and directly too Thou hast contrived against the very life Of the defendant. Shak.

their great pieces against the city. Knolles. Feeling in other cases discharges itself in indirect muscular actions. H. Spencer.

to; to incline; to make inclined; -- usually followed by to, sometimes by for before the indirect object. Endure and conquer; Jove will soon dispose To future good our past and present woes. Dryden. Suspicions dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, and wise men to irresolution and melancholy. Bacon. To dispos…

To bestow or communicate by a suggestion; to let fall in an indirect, cautious, or gentle manner; as, to drop hint, a word of counsel, etc.

suffix used, chiefly in law terms, in a passive signification, to indicate the direct or indirect object of an action, or the one to whom an act is done or on whom a right is conferred; as in assignee, donee, alienee, grantee, etc. It is correlative to -or, the agent or doer.

Serving to refute; refutative; -- applied to indirect modes of proof, and opposed to deictic.