ambages

From Old French ambages (French ambages), from Latin ambāges, from ambi- + agere (“to drive”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈam.bɪ.d͡ʒɪz/

ambages pl (plural only)

1. (archaic) Indirect or roundabout ways of talking; circumlocution.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):

     , Bk.I, New York, 2001, p.169:

     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 […].

2. (archaic) Indirect or roundabout routes or directions.
   • 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man In Deptford:

     Paris put fear into him, a city of monstrous size to which London was but a market town. Its ambages of streets bewildered.

From ambi- (“both”) +‎ agō (“I drive”) +‎ -ēs (noun forming suffix).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /amˈbaː.ɡeːs/

ambāgēs f (genitive ambāgis); third declension

1. circuit (roundabout way)
2. long story
3. circumlocution, evasion, digression
4. ambiguity

Third declension, alternative accusative singular in -im, alternative ablative singular in -ī and accusative plural in -īs.

• Catalan: ambages
• French: ambages
• Portuguese: ambages
• Spanish: ambages

• ambages in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ambages in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ambages in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• ambages in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to speak without circumlocution: missis ambagibus dicere
    

Circa 1355, borrowed from Latin ambāges.

ambages m pl

1. circumlocution, ambages (indirect or roundabout ways of talking)

• English: ambages (borrowed)
• French: ambages

From Latin ambāges.

• IPA^(key): /amˈbaxes/, [ãmˈbaxes]

ambages m pl (plural only)

1. circumlocution, ambages (indirect or roundabout ways of talking)
2. (rare) ambages (indirect or roundabout routes or directions)

• circunlocución
• circunloquios
• rodeos

• ambagioso

• “ambages” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.