go (all) (a)round the houses

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go (all) (a)round the houses

To waste one's time and energy saying unimportant things before getting to one's point. Doc, please stop going around the houses and just tell me—how serious are Johnny's injuries? My mother never just gives me a straight answer. Instead, she always goes all round the houses with elaborate tangents and explanations.

go round the houses

go all round the houses

BRITISH

If someone goes round the houses or goes all round the houses, they keep talking about unimportant things before they get to the thing they are meant to be talking about. After three minutes of going round the houses I had still failed to get a sense from him of whether he felt he'd done anything wrong. I really can't be bothered going all round the houses with you. This is the deal.

go round (or all round) the houses

1 take a circuitous route to your destination. 2 take an unnecessarily long time to get to the point.

go all round the ˈhouses

(British English, informal) do something or ask a question in a very complicated way instead of in a simple, direct way: If you want to ask her something, just ask her directly — there’s no need to go all round the houses!