ambages

noun

1. (archaic, plural, plural-only)Indirect or roundabout ways of talking; circumlocution.

   “Thus from her cell Cumæan Sibyl sings / Ambiguous ambages, the cloyster rings / With the shrill sound thereof, in most dark strains.”

   “Having thus briefly anatomized the body and soul of man,[…]I may now freely proceed to treat of my intended subject, to most men's capacity; and after many ambages, perspicuously define what this melancholy is[…].”

2. (archaic, plural, plural-only)Indirect or roundabout routes or directions.

   “Paris put fear into him, a city of monstrous size to which London was but a market town. Its ambages of streets bewildered.”