circumbendibus

English

From Latin circum (“round about”) (compare English circum-) + English bend + Latin -ibus

circumbendibus (comparative more circumbendibus, superlative most circumbendibus)

(often humorous) indirect or roundabout
- 1918 Sidney Watson, In the Twinkling of an Eye, Bible institute of Los Angeles, p66
  “We’re all circumbendibus, / Wherever we may be, / We’re all circumbendibus, / On land or on sea. / Rich or poor or middling, / Wherever we are found, / We’re all circumbendibus, / We’re all going round.”
- 1987 Syed Tassadque Hussain, Reflections on Kashmir politics,Rima Pub. House, p59
  The only irresistible inference that can be deduced from a bare perusal of this judgment is that it is circumbendibus in its tenor vague and conjectural in its logic and in fine it is a remarkable piece of a political document.

indirect, roundabout

circumbendibus (plural circumbendibuses)

(often humorous) A roundabout route or process
- 1899 Herbert Spencer, Social Statics; Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed, D. Appleton and company, p383
  If, as Coleridge says, “a knave is a fool with a circumbendibus,” then by instructing the knave you do but make the circumbendibus a wider one.
- 1907 Albert Temple Swing, James Harris Fairchild; Or Sixty-Eight Years with a Christian College, F. H. Revell company, p155
  After he had moved into the house and repaired it Mrs. Mary L. Bacon remembers standing with him one day and looking over the winding flag stones leading up to his front door. “And what is this,” he said, “a circumbendibus?”
- 1968 George William Erskine Russell, Afterthoughts, Ayer Publishing, p152
  Before tea-time my circumbendibus brought me to the hospitable residence of Tommy’s chief supporter, whom we will call Mr Goodhart.
(often humorous) A roundabout, indirect, or confusing manner of speech or writing

roundabout route or process

a roundabout or confusing manner

Finnish: kiertoilmaus (fi)
French: circonlocution (fr), galimatias (fr), cultisme (fr)gongorisme (fr), préciosité (fr)
German: Umschweif (de) m