Definition of "periphrastic"

As poetry it does not measure up to Aasen; as translation it is periphrastic, arbitrary, not at all faithful.

1916, Martin Brown Ruud, An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway‎

That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory/ A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion/ Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle / With words and meanings.

1940, T. S. Eliot, East Coker

In writing, they deem it irreverent to express the Supreme Being [and] in conversation they generally use a periphrastic epithet, such as the All-Good.

1871, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (published anonymously), The Coming Race‎, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons