roundabout; indirect; circuitous
Describes methods, explanations, or routes that are unnecessarily long, indirect, or impractical. Often used in formal or critical contexts.
His explanation was roundabout, and the main point was hard to see.
ignorant of the world; unworldly
Obsolete sense; formerly used to describe someone naive or out of touch with practical affairs. Not used in modern Japanese.
そんな迂遠な方法では時間がかかりすぎる。
Such a circuitous method would take too much time.
In classical texts, a person may be described as '迂遠' meaning unworldly.
euphemistic and circumlocutory
Standard kanji spelling; the word is literary and not commonly written in kana.
The kanji 迂 means 'roundabout' or 'detour', and 遠 means 'distant'. The compound literally suggests a long, indirect path, which extended to impractical methods and, in an obsolete sense, to being out of touch with the world.