How to Use indirection in a Sentence

indirection

noun
  • This might suggest that a truer study of the psyche and its place in the world could be conducted via indirection or obliquity.
    Matthew Bevis, Harper’s Magazine , 16 Feb. 2022
  • This is, of course, an indirect evocation of Donald Trump in a movie that doesn’t have much truck with indirection.
    Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 9 Aug. 2018
  • The light of Ulster traveled not by particle or wave but by indirection, hint and rumor.
    Jennifer Egan, New York Times, 26 June 2017
  • My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge or awareness comes to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection.
    Hillel Italie, Philly.com, 5 Sep. 2017
  • His essence has been captured by indirection, via a gigantic lifetime write-around.
    Tom Zoellner, New York Times, 1 June 2018
  • Antrim’s writing here is brilliant in its indirection and compression.
    David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 2021
  • The nearly plotless story snares us through indirection to produce a pleasingly dark collage.
    Claude Peck, Star Tribune, 23 Oct. 2020
  • Dutiful sons often revere their fathers for their instruction in the ways of the world—by direction and indirection, sterling example and train wreck.
    Edward Kosner, WSJ, 5 May 2022
  • In fairness, elaboration could detract from Magid’s mode of storytelling, which relies a lot on indirection and leaving things unsaid.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 26 June 2019
  • The letter is included in the report and is an exquisite piece of clerical indirection and equivocation.
    Paul Elie, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2020
  • Unlike Shakespeare, Greenblatt does not choose a strategy of indirection.
    Glenn C. Althschuler, Philly.com, 18 May 2018
  • This is music that comes packed in velvet under any circumstances — the melodies liquid and slightly droopy, the harmonies tinged with indirection — and Bullock’s performance delivered a full helping of sybaritic delight.
    Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Mar. 2018
  • What the owners of the street lusted after was recognition of superior comprehension of what counted in this world, and their strategy for getting it combined restraint and indirection.
    Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2017
  • Even here, though, Ms. DeLappe shows her sophisticated grasp of exposition by indirection and of the telling, seemingly insignificant detail that wrings the heart.
    Ben Brantley, New York Times, 11 Sep. 2016
  • The show loves to lampoon moral inconsistencies of Victorian England with Python-like indirection.
    Hugh Hunter, Philly.com, 4 May 2018
  • Multiple layers of obfuscation and indirection are standard in this criminal realm.
    Rahul Kashyap, Quartz, 15 Jan. 2020
  • Wong often proceeds by indirection, and the obvious contrast of this first meeting — between Big Labor’s encumbrances and Roosevelt’s dexterity — made, in retrospect, a deliberate point.
    Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New York Times, 23 July 2016
  • Axios-ese strikes me as particularly unsuited to corporate communication, which for better or worse is packed deliberately with euphemism and indirection and exaggerated diplomacy.
    Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 26 Sep. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'indirection.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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