subs. (old).—A roundabout; a long-winded story. [From Lat. circum, around, + Eng. BEND, with a Latin termination.]
1681. DRYDEN, The Spanish Friar, v. 2. I shall fetch him back with a CIRCUMBENDIBUS, I warrant him. [M.]
1768. LORD CARLISLE, in J. H. Jesse’s George Selwyn and His Contemporaries, II., 317 (1882). I can assure you it grieved me that anything of yours should make such a CIRCUMBENDIBUS before it came to my hands.
1773. GOLDSMITH, She Stoops to Conquer, Act v., Sc. 2. And from that with a CIRCUMBENDIBUS, I fairly lodged them in the horse-pond at the bottom of the garden.
1849. BULWER-LYTTON, The Caxtons, pt. VIII., ch. i. The cabman, to swell his fare, had thought proper to take a CIRCUMBENDIBUS.
1890. Notes and Queries, 7 S., ix., 29 March. … No choice but to deliver himself of a malediction with a CIRCUMBENDIBUS.
