ambages

From Middle English ambages, from Old French ambages (modern 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.
   • 1632, Vicar's Virgil, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     Thus from her cell Cumæan Sibyl sings / Ambiguous ambages, the cloyster rings / With the shrill sound thereof, in most dark strains.

   • 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:

     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.

• ambiguous

• Audio:

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ambages

1. plural of ambage

• ambāgō

From ambi- (“around”) +‎ agō (“to behave, proceed”) +‎ -ēs (noun-forming suffix).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /amˈbaː.ɡeːs/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /amˈba.d͡ʒes/,

ambāgēs f (genitive ambāgis); third declension

1. an indirect, roundabout path; a wandering to and fro, twists and turns
   1. Used to denote any intricate or tortuous process, system or scheme
2. (of discourse or behavior) circumlocution, evasion, digression, beating about the bush
3. a mental uncertainty or confusion

Third-declension noun.

• ambigō
• ambiguus

• Catalan: ambages
• Corsican: ambacu
• Old French: ambages
  • French: ambages
  • → English: ambages
• Galician: ambaxes
• Italian: ambage
• → Polish: ambaje (learned)
• Portuguese: ambages
• Spanish: ambages

• “ambāgēs” on page 125 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)

• “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 with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 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
• French: ambages

Borrowed from Latin ambāges.

• IPA^(key): /amˈbaxes/
• Rhymes: -axes
• Syllabification: am‧ba‧ges

ambages m pl (plural only)

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

   Synonyms: circunlocución, circunloquios

   • 2020 September 6, “Johnson prepara a los británicos para un Brexit duro a finales de año”, in El País‎:

     Pero en esta ocasión, todos los actores reconocen que el Gobierno de Johnson comienza a mostrar sin ambages sus verdaderas cartas, y que ya no disimula su objetivo final de abandonar con las menores ataduras posibles su relación con la UE.

     But on this occasion, all the actors recognize that the Johnson government is beginning to show its true colors, and that it no longer hides its final objective of ending its relationship with the EU with as few ties as possible.

2. (rare) ambages (indirect or roundabout routes or directions)

   Synonym: rodeos

• “ambages”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10