"Periphrasis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be Rita's favorite topic. Most women are clever at periphrasis, and will go a long way around to reach a desired topic, if for any reason they do not wish to approach it directly. The topics Rita wished to reach, as she edged toward Dic on the log and talked about geese, were her unkind words and her very kind letter. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... &c., which are decidedly generis ejusdem.12. "His'n," his own; corresponding to the Latin suus, his own and nobody else's, so frequently met with in OVID and others. 13. "Crack," a twinkling, an extremely short interval of time, which was formerly expressed, in general, by a periphrasis; as, "Ere the leviathan can swim a league!"—SHAKESPEARE. 14. "Cut," sped. A synonym. 15. "Squatted," sat. Id. 16. "Davy," affidavit, solemn oath. Significant and euphonious, therefore alluring to the versifier. 17. "Don't I, just?" A question for a strong affirmation, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... inversion and occasional obscurity, and lacks smoothness; but it seemed to me to give the general reader a better idea of the poem than a mere prose translation would do, in addition to the advantage of literalness. While it would have been easy, by means of periphrasis and freer translation, to mend some of the defects chargeable to the line-for-line form, the translation would have lacked literalness, which I regarded as the most important object.' ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... been, by the cowardice of our old translators, so maimed of its vitality, that the frank Greek assertion of St. Michael's not daring to blaspheme the devil,[96] is tenfold more mischievously deadened and caricatured by their periphrasis of "durst not bring against him a railing accusation," than by Byron's apparently—and only apparently—less reverent description of the manner of angelic encounter for an ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Wain, literally means 'oxen;' and is by some thought to come from 'tero,' 'to bruise,' because oxen were used for the purpose of threshing corn; but it is more likely to have its origin from 'terra,' 'the earth,' because oxen were used for ploughing. The Poet employs this periphrasis, to signify the middle ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... praise giueth he to Stilico the sonne in law of Honorius, and maketh mention of a legion of souldiers sent for out of Britaine in the periphrasis or circumlocution of the ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... . . . . Admirable, but must not be overworked. Oratory . . . . . . . Fair. Has tendency to unnecessary candour. Does not sufficiently employ periphrasis. Fidelity . . . . ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... outbreak of a dangerous slave conspiracy in Richmond, they met in secret session to consult the common security. The resolution which they reached shows unmistakably Jefferson's influence. With the delicate if somewhat obscure periphrasis in which legislation concerning the Negro was traditionally couched, they enacted: "That the Governor be requested to correspond with the President of the United States on the subject of purchasing lands without the limits of this State whither persons obnoxious to the laws or ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... of the relations in which he stood to a patron, and to the position that he sought to fill in the circle of that patron's literary retainers. Twenty sonnets, which may for purposes of exposition be entitled 'dedicatory' sonnets, are addressed to one who is declared without periphrasis and without disguise to be a patron of the poet's verse (Nos. xxiii., xxvi., xxxii., xxxvii., xxxviii., lxix., lxxvii.-lxxxvi., c., ci., cvi.) In ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... who may he thank for that, I interrogate. Not one Denis O'Donegan!—O no; the said Denis is an ignoramus, and knows nothing of the classics. Well, be it so. All I say is, that I wish I had one classical lick at their provost, I would let him know what the master of a plantation seminary (*—a periphrasis for hedge-school) could do when brought to the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... borrowed from compliant friends. "We," says Lamb, in his delightful way, "attached our small talents to the forlorn fortunes of our friend. Our occupation was now to write treason." Lamb hinted at possible abdications. Blocks, axes, and Whitehall tribunals were covered with flowers of so cunning a periphrasis—as, Mr. Bayes says, never naming the thing directly—that the keen eye of an Attorney-General was insufficient to detect the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... object.' He 'comprehended,' indeed, 'the worth of constancy' and other virtues as well as most men, and could have written about them better than most men; but somehow 'a sinister influence or agency,' a periphrasis for a sensuous temperament, was perpetually present, which confined his virtues to the sphere of theory. An apology sometimes is worse than a satire. The case, however, seems to be sufficiently plain. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... word," cried Dale, coming in on my heels with an elucidation of my periphrasis, "what de Gex is driving at is—Do you prefer respectability ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... is indeed so terrible in its nature, and in its manifest consequences, that there is no way of quieting our apprehensions about it, but by totally putting it out of sight, by substituting for it, through a sort of periphrasis, something of an ambiguous quality, and describing such a connexion under the terms of 'the usual relations of peace and amity.' By this means the proposed fraternity is hustled in the crowd of those treaties, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... Dryden, not, perhaps, a great ornament to my persuasion, but still a Catholic at the last. Dean Panther had not grudged poet Hind his niche in the National Valhalla (I knew I should be reduced to that periphrasis). And here was the mighty Charles Darwin, about whose reception into the English Pantheon (I have fallen again) I remember there was some trouble. Well, if precedent embalms a principle, I venture to raise a thin small voice, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... the saints, or open hints to the devil came roaring from him, that hilarious mouth of his invited you to share delights. You had needs laugh with him, and he, cursing high and low, beamed all over his face. "To make Baldassare laugh" became a stock periphrasis for the supreme degree of tragedy among his neighbours. About this traitor mouth of his he had a dew of scrubby beard, silvered black; he had bushy eyebrows, hands and arms covered with a black pelt: ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... then, except by military students now, it is not a work to be popularly read; the exhausted interest of its subject swamps the genius of its narrator. Scattered through its more serious matter are gems with the old "Eothen" sparkle, of periphrasis, aphorism, felicitous phrase and pregnant epithet. Such is the fine analogy between the worship of holy shrines and the lover's homage to the spot which his mistress's feet have trod; such France's tolerance of the Elysee brethren compared ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... plunged in oppression's heart." He goes on to say, "there must be a hard-blowing storm before the high places in State and Church can be levelled," &c. &c. There is the usual twaddle about "moral force," forsooth, under which saving periphrasis, now-a-days, every rebel ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle, insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been hit upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various |
