circumlocution, formed of περί, "about," and φαίνω, "I speak;" in rhetoric, a circuit or tour of words, much affected by orators, to avoid common and trite manners of expression. The periphrasis is of great use on some occasions; and it is often necessary to make things be conceived which are not proper to name. It is sometimes polite to suppress the names, and only intimate or design them. These turns of expression are also particularly serviceable in oratory; for the sublime admitting of no direct citations, there must be a compass taken to infuse the authors whose authority is borrowed. A periphrasis, by turning round a proper name to make it understood, amplifies and raises the discourse; but care must be taken it be not too much fuddled, nor extended, mal à propos; in which case it becomes flat and languid. See Circumlocution and Oratory.

PERILOCA, Virginian Silk; a genus of plants belonging to the pentandra class; and in the natural method ranking under the 30th order, Coniferae. See Botany Index.