ambages
nounUK /ˈam.bɪ.d͡ʒɪz/
Etymology From Middle English ambages, from Old French ambages (modern French ambages), from Latin ambāges, from ambi- + agere (“to drive”).
1
Archaic Indirect or roundabout ways of talking; circumlocution.
- Thus from her cell Cumæan Sibyl sings / Ambiguous ambages, the cloyster rings / With the shrill sound thereof, in most dark strains.1632, Vicar's Virgil, (Please provide the book title or journal name):
- Having thus briefly anatomized the body and soul of man,[…]I may now freely proceed to treat of my intended subject, to most men's capacity; and after many ambages, perspicuously define what this melancholy is[…].1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, page 169:
2
Archaic Indirect or roundabout routes or directions.
- Paris put fear into him, a city of monstrous size to which London was but a market town. Its ambages of streets bewildered.1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man In Deptford:
- Derived terms
- circumambages
- Related terms
- ambiguous