(n.) The use of many words to express an idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language; a periphrase.
Example Sentences:
(1) His avoidance of the circumlocutions favoured by most politicians led to a popular misconception that he is a straight shooter.
(2) Anomic aphasics produced the fewest phonemic errors and the most multiword circumlocutions; this pattern suggests minimal word-production difficulty in anomic aphasia relative to the other aphasia syndromes.
(3) On several occasions, when the patient failed to name a picture which happened to be lexicalized by a polysemous word, a residual covert word form could still operate as a link between different meanings of the target word; then, the patient produces a word or a circumlocution related to one meaning which was not the illustrated meaning.
(4) Semantically-related errors and circumlocutions characterized the naming of aphasic and demented patients, while phonemic errors were common only in aphasics.
(5) In addition, the relative distribution of the three most prominent naming errors-phonemic errors, semantic errors, and multiword circumlocutions-tended to distinguish the two anomic subgroups from the other aphasia subgroups.
(6) When subjects did not respond correctly to phonemic cueing, a significantly greater number of phonemic errors were produced, with a concurrent decline in related words and extended circumlocutions.
(7) With increasing age subjects produced more circumlocutions and fewer semantic errors.
(8) Behind these circumlocutions and evasions lie the unmistakable reality that this republican coronation puts an end to the hopes that were generated by the biggest upheaval of the Arab spring.
(9) Mr Micawber was a kindly man, albeit one given to circumlocution and financial mismanagement.
(10) He has mastered the art of never mentioning the treasurer's name in public, exhausting every possible circumlocution.
(11) Semantic errors (i.e., circumlocutions, semantically related associates, and nominalizations) and perceptual errors increase with age.
(12) Data for the parameter of semantics revealed a significantly greater occurrence of hesitations than circumlocutions, verbal paraphasias, or revisions.
Colloquial
Definition:
(a.) Pertaining to, or used in, conversation, esp. common and familiar conversation; conversational; hence, unstudied; informal; as, colloquial intercourse; colloquial phrases; a colloquial style.
Example Sentences:
(1) When the Washington Post reports a boom in bullet-proof backpacks for children, it is not a good time to be a resident of a place colloquially known as The Arms.
(2) The prose rhythm and colloquial diction here work against exaggeration, but allow for humour.
(3) In colloquial terms, senior ministers in the new government should have been having more cups of tea with the crossbench members in the Senate in the weeks and months after the election.
(4) This paper attempts a new departure both in German dialectology and in phonemic analysis: (i) It is based on an open corpus of spontaneous, colloquial speech.
(5) The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire was modified for use amongst British patients by the substitution of colloquial expressions.
(6) For both thyroxine and triiodothyronine the component contribution of within-individual variation to the population-based variation (the latter also termed the 'reference interval', or colloquially the 'normal range') was small.
(7) We can end our nation’s domestic violence epidemic by properly funding crisis lines, legal centres, emergency accommodation, affordable long-term accommodation and prevention.” Thousands of Australians still turned away from homeless services Read more Labor introduced a private members’ bill earlier in the year to criminalise the sharing of private sexual imagery without the consent of the subject, a practice colloquially known as revenge porn.
(8) Emad Hajjaj, a popular Jordanian cartoonist, drew an elderly Palestinian woman by her sagging UN tent saying – in an untranslatable pun on the words “Charlie” and the colloquial Arabic “I have been” – that she had lived as a refugee for the 67 years since the creation of Israel in 1948.
(9) The media as a whole should be united in defending freedom of expression.” NewstrAid, known colloquially as “Old Ben”, was set up in 1839 to support newspaper vendors in London.
(10) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem that succeeds through a series of vivid contrasts: standard English contrasting with colloquial speech; the devotion and virtue of the young knight contrasting with the growling threats of his green foe; exchanges of courtly love contrasting with none-too-subtle sexual innuendo; exquisite robes and priceless crowns contrasting with spurting blood and the steaming organs of butchered animals; polite, indoor society contrasting with the untamed, unpredictable outdoors.
(11) Whereas in 37 of 51 patients a normal or almost normal colloquial speech could be demonstrated, 30 of 39 patients with cleft lip and palate showed a normal or almost normal realization of the test sentences.
(12) Comey made self-deprecating jokes and slipped into colloquialisms.
(13) He was studiedly colloquial – "You won't believe this, Jacqueline" – and cast himself as the rebel.
(14) Being friends with Irish people is almost a nostalgic thing – we can speak some Irish language, reminisce about Irish colloquialisms and talk about sports.
(15) Similar changes were also observed on acupuncture points CV17 (Shan Zhong), CV 22 (Tian Tu), Yin Tang (at an area just between the eyebrows: the pituitary gland representation area, colloquially known as the "third eye") and GV20(Bai Hui), the entire pericardium meridian & triple burner meridian, their acupuncture points, the adrenal glands, testes, ovaries and perineum, as well as along the entire spinal vertebrae, particularly on and above the 12th thoracic vertebra, medulla oblongata, pons, and the intestinal representation areas of the brain located just above and behind the upper ear.
(16) In his commentary, Robinson writes that Chaplin "can move without warning from the baldly colloquial to dazzling yet apparently effortless imagery, as when the crushed Calvero gazes 'wearily into the secretive river, gliding phantom-like in a life of its own … smiling satanically at him as it flecked myriad lights from the moon and from the lamps along the embankment'".
(17) When a physician performs unprofessional activity breaking the rules of his profession, which is colloquially interpreted as charlatanism, the term "malpractice" is used.
(18) He volunteered initially but within months had secured a permanent position in the West Wing, latterly as the President's aide – a role dubbed the "body man", or more colloquially "butt boy" in the US.
(19) The voice that Plath eventually created is indeed fresh, brazen and colloquial, but also sardonic and bitter, the story of a young woman's psychological disintegration and eventual – provisional – recovery.
(20) He might have said "we agree to disagree" or used some other flaccid political colloquialism for the truth – that to Gordon, this lady's views were bizarre – but he just said it like it was.