Irony & Understatement
Periphrasis
Saying something in more words than needed — a roundabout route instead of the direct name. The detour can elevate, evade, or characterize a speaker who can't say the plain thing.
"the finny tribe" for fish, in Augustan verse
Don't confuse it with Euphemism, Pleonasm. Euphemism detours specifically around the offensive; pleonasm adds redundant words without rerouting the meaning.
In the Reader — 3 excerpts
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay before me.
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days.
Travels with
Devices that share a passage with periphrasis most often — company reveals character.
Litotes 4 Passive Voice 3 Asyndeton 3 Hyperbaton 3
The rest of the family
Irony Hyperbole Litotes Meiosis / Understatement Bathos Euphemism Apophasis