Search the Dictionary

Speech or discourse; a phrase; a form or mode of expression. " Stumbling locutions." G. Eliot. I hate these figures in locution, These about phrases forced by ceremony. Marston.

See Allocution. [Obs.]

The act or manner of speaking to, or of addressing in words.

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 delayed by passing through the hands of different officials.

Relating to, or consisting of, circumlocutions; periphrastic; circuitous.

A speaking or conversing together; conference; mutual discourse. Bailey.

Utterance by speech. [R.] [Fruit] whose taste . . . Gave elocution to the mute, and taught The tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise. Milton.

Pertaining to elocution.

One who is versed in elocution; a teacher of elocution.

Interchange of speech; dialogue; conversation; conference.

Ventriloquism.

A circuit; a winding. Hence: Circuitous way or proceeding; quibble; circumlocution; indirect mode of speech. After many ambages, perspicuously define what this melancholy is. Burton.

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

Circumlocution. [Obs.] "Thou hast used no circuit of words." Huloet. Circuit court (Law), a court which sits successively in different places in its circuit (see Circuit, 6). In the United States, the federal circuit courts are commonly presided over by a judge of the supreme court, or a special circuit judge, together…

The act of going round; circumlocution. [R.]

A leading about; circumlocution. [R.] Hooker.

Characterised by circumlocution; periphrastic. Shenstone. The officials set to work in regular circumlocutory order. Chambers's Journal.

Circumlocution; detail. [Obs.] So without more circumstance at all I hold it fit that shake hands and part. Shak.

A roundabout procedure; a circumlocution. He had neither time nor temper for sentimental circumvolutions. Beaconsfield.

ess one's self; stiffness. [Obs.] A reverend disputant of the same costiveness in public elocution with myself. Wakefield.