1650s, from French ambagieux, from Latin ambagiosus, from ambages "circuits, circumlocutions," from amb- "about" (see ambi-) + agere "to drive" (see act (n.)).
英英释意
1. roundabout and unnecessarily wordy;
"had a preference for circumlocutious (or circumlocutory) rather than forthright expression"
"A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,/ Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle/ With words and meanings."-T.S.Eliot; (`ambagious' is archaic)
