ambages en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˈam.bɪ.d͡ʒɪz/ (UK)
Etymology
From Middle English ambages, from Old French ambages (modern French ambages), from Latin ambāges, from ambi- + agere (“to drive”).
Meanings
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(archaic, plural, plural-only) 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:
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(archaic, plural, plural-only) 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: