go (all) round the houses
UK informalto waste time doing or asking something in a very complicated way
US go around Robin Hood's barn to take a route that is much longer than necessary:
I got the number 26 bus and that one goes all round the houses.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Digressing and being indirect or evasive
- beat
- discursive
- elliptical
- euphemism
- evasive
- go off on a tangent idiom
- implicit
- move off sth/on (to sth)
- obliquely
- parry
- roundabout
- sanitize
- sidestep
- skirt
- suggestion
- talk around sth
- tangent
- tiptoe
- tiptoe around sth/sb
- underlying
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