go round the houses



go (all) round the houses

  (British)
to waste time saying a lot of things that are not important before you get to the subject you want to talk about There's no need to go all round the houses, just tell me straight out what's wrong.
See also: house, round

Common Names:

NameGenderPronouncedUsage
CleophasKLEE-ə-fəs (English)Biblical
Erna (1)ER-nah (German, Swedish)German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
Morwenna-Cornish, Welsh
Germogen-Russian
AureoleAWR-ee-olEnglish (Rare)
Nechemyah-Biblical Hebrew