circumlocution

noun

1. A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:

2. Unnecessary use of extra words to express an idea, such as a pleonastic phrase (sometimes driven by an attempt at emphatic clarity) or a wordy substitution (the latter driven by euphemistic intent, pedagogic intent, or sometimes loquaciousness alone).

3. Necessary use of a phrase to circumvent either a vocabulary fault (of speaker or listener) or a lexical gap, either monolingually or in translation.

   “A technical word, such as hyperkalemia or hypoallergenic, can be glossed for general audiences with a circumlocution, such as "high potassium level" or "less likely to cause allergies" (respectively).”

4. An instance of such usage; a roundabout expression, whether an inadvisable one or a necessary one.

5. A style that involves indirect ways of expressing things

   Similar: periphrasis, ambage

6. An indirect way of expressing something

   Similar: indirect expression