Circumlocutions

Yes, circumlocution is an actual word. It means “a phrase when you can’t think of (or don’t want to use) a word that means the same thing.” You use a circumlocution when you say “beat around the bush” instead of “evasive.”

“Ultimate” normally means “cannot be exceeded,” but it also means “last,” and herein lies the following joke in Pros and Cons:

“Penultimate” means “next to last.” Did you know there’s a word for “the one before next to last”? It’s “antepenultimate.”

You probably won’t need to use “antepenultimate” often, but there you have it if you ever want to avoid the circumlocution.

PS: The rules for accenting verbs in Classical Greek go only as far as antepenultimate, so I had forgotten about this word, a good example of prefixes gone wild, preantepenultimate (fourth from the last), which I was reminded of recently in A word a Day.