ambage means evasive or ambiguous language; circumlocution. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
AMBAGE — [Noun] Evasive or ambiguous language; an indirect or obscure path. From Middle English ambages, from French ambage and its etymon Latin ambāgēs, meaning "a roundabout or circuitous path," built from ambi- ("around") and agere ("to drive, to lead"). Unlike periphrasis, which adorns a thought with decorative rhetoric, or circumlocution, a plainer term for roundabout speech, ambage implies a deliberate syntactic fog meant to obscure a destination. It is the bureaucrat's labyrinthine refusal, the legal clause that vanishes into a thicket of subjunctives, and the diplomat's polished evasion that circles its subject like a wary predator—the formal shape taken by a truth too difficult to be approached directly.
noun
- Evasive or ambiguous language; circumlocution.“Puttenham, Art of Poesie
without any long studie or tedious ambage”
- An indirect or obscure path.