circumlocution
sur-kum-loh-KYOO-shunnounMeaning using many words to avoid saying something directly
Memory hook CIRCUM-LOCU: talking in CIRCLES. Asked if he ate the last cookie, Pip talks about the weather, his homework and the dog, everything except yes or no. That is circumlocution.
Asked if he ate the last cookie, Pip answered with ten minutes of circumlocution.
In context The letter was a masterpiece of circumlocution: three pages about “adjustments” and “new directions” that never once said the store was closing.
Similar beating around the bush, wordiness, evasion, roundabout talk
Opposite directness, bluntness
From Latin circumlocutio, “a speaking around”: circum (around) + loqui (to speak).