long way around

long way around (plural long ways around)

1. Used other than with a figurative or idiomatic meaning: see long,‎ way,‎ around.
2. An indirect approach.
   • 1986, Frank Stella, Working Space, →ISBN, page 54:

     Acknowledging Annibale Carracci is the long way around to Rubens, but it is the route of choice because Annibale so aptly exemplifies a nagging notion we have about the difficulty of looking at painting in general and individual paintings in particular.

   • 2009, Peter Seibel, Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming, →ISBN, page 268:

     That was the long way around of saying that I tend to use terribly crude debugging techniques with unsafe printfs.

   • 2014, Jesse Ball, Silence Once Begun, →ISBN, page 182:

     It seems that people think of simple ways to say things or know them, but I was always taking the long way around.

   • 2014, Robert W. Jenson & ‎Stephen John Wright, Theology as Revisionary Metaphysics: Essays on God and Creation, →ISBN:

     We often ask why God takes such long ways around to his stated objectives.