[A humorous formation from CIRCUM- + BEND, with the ending of a L. ablative pl.] A roundabout process or method; a twist, turn; circumlocution.
1681. Dryden, Span. Friar, V. ii. I shall fetch him back with a circum-bendibus, I warrant him.
1727. Pope, etc. Art Sinking, 100. The Periphrasis, which the moderns call the circumbendibus.
1773. Goldsm., Stoops to Conq., V. ii. With a circumbendibus, I fairly lodged them in the horsepond.
1791. Bentham, Mem., Wks. 1843, X. 266. The notice … was to come in circumbendibus through two different channels.
1814. Scott, Wav., xxiv. Partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus.
1867. Sir W. Harcourt, in Times, 9 May, 12/2. What is the intention of this clumsy, embarrassing, and vexatious circumbendibus?
attrib. 1714. C. Johnson, Country Lasses, II. ii. (1756), 29. This Fellow ruffles me so every Day with his most abominable Circumbendibus Phrases.
