This week’s theme
Geometrical terms used figuratively

This week’s words
squarehead
circle the wagons
square-toed
circumlocution
square the circle


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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(suhr-kuhm-loh-KYOO-shuhn)

MEANING:

noun: The use of roundabout language, especially to avoid giving a direct answer.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin circum- (around) + locution (talk), from loqui (to speak). Earliest documented use: 1518.

NOTES:

Circumlocution is the fine art of taking a 360-degree approach to a yes-or-no question. It’s a fancy word for beating around the bush. In Little Dorrit (1855-1857), Charles Dickens gave us the Circumlocution Office, a government department devoted less to action than to obstruction. As he put it, it excelled in “How not to do it.” A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but bureaucracies have always preferred scenic routes.

USAGE:

“The poet Donald Hall casts a wintry eye at our circumlocutions for death -- pass away, go home, cross over, etc. -- and notes that ‘all euphemisms conceal how we gasp and choke turning blue.’”
Tad Friend; Getting On; The New Yorker; Nov 20, 2017.

See more usage examples of circumlocution in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: