Makurakotoba

Makurakotoba (枕詞?), literally "pillow word", are figures of speech used in Japanese waka poetry, where epithets are used in association with certain words. Their usage is akin to “grey-eyed Athena” of in the Ancient Greek epics of Homer. The set phrase can be thought of as a “pillow” for the noun or verb it describes, although the actual etymology is not fully known.