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Circuitous; going round; indirect; as, roundabout speech. We have taken a terrible roundabout road. Burke.

The quality of being roundabout; circuitousness.

n is necessary to attain the object in view. -- To make a circuit, to go around; to go a roundabout way. -- Voltaic or Galvanic circuit or circle, a continous electrical communication between the two poles of a battery; an arrangement of voltaic elements or couples with proper conductors, by which a continuous curren…

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 going round in a circle; a course not direct; a roundabout way of proceeding.

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…

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

The use of more words than are necessary to express the idea; a roundabout, or indirect, way of speaking; circumlocution. "To describe by enigmatic periphrases." De Quincey.

A winding and circuitous way; a roundabout course; a shift.