"Periphrasis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of highly wrought comparisons, each paragraph beginning with an 'As' followed by a correlative 'So' half a page further on. No such series of pictures, however fairly wrought—and Browne's too often end in bathos—can possibly convey the impression of continuons action. It is the same with periphrasis. Used with discretion it may be one of the subtlest ornaments of style, and even when fulfilling no particular purpose is capable of imparting a luxuriant and somewhat rococo richness to the verse. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... writes himself Peter Ball, or Bell,—for his hand-writing is as ragged as his manners,—admonishes me of the old saying, that some people (under a courteous periphrasis I slur his less ceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,' I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. Bell clamors upon this, and thinketh that he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... however, indebted solely to his knowledge of the subject for his triumph: he was possessed of Fenning's Dictionary, and he made a most singular use of it. His custom was to fix on any word in common use, and then to get by heart the synonym, or periphrasis by which it was explained in the book: this he constantly substituted for the other, and as his opponents were commonly ignorant of his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... reason that this poor syllable death sounded so harshly to their ears and seemed so ominous, found out a way to soften and spin it out by a periphrasis, and instead of pronouncing such a one is dead, said, "Such a one has lived," or "Such a one has ceased to live" —[Plutarch, Life of Cicero, c. 22:]—for, provided there was any mention of life in the case, though past, it carried yet ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... spoke of him only in symbolic words, designating him by some periphrasis: Pharaoh, "Pirui-Aui," the Double Palace, "Pruiti," the Sublime Porte, His Majesty,* the Sun of the two lands, Horus master of the palace, or, less ceremoniously, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero |
