prevaricate

4 definitions found

prevaricate - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Prevaricate \Pre*var"i*cate\, v. i. [imp. & p. p.
     Prevaricated; p. pr. & vb. n. Prevaricating.] [L.
     praevaricatus, p. p. of praevaricari to walk crookedly, to
     collude; prae before + varicare to straddle, fr. varicus
     straddling, varus bent. See Varicose.]
     1. To shift or turn from one side to the other, from the
        direct course, or from truth; to speak with equivocation;
        to shuffle; to quibble; as, he prevaricates in his
        statement.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              He prevaricates with his own understanding. --South.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Civil Law) To collude, as where an informer colludes with
        the defendant, and makes a sham prosecution.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Eng. Law) To undertake a thing falsely and deceitfully,
        with the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: To evade; equivocate; quibble; shuffle.
  
     Usage: Prevaricate, Evade, Equivocate. One who evades a
            question ostensibly answers it, but really turns aside
            to some other point. He who equivocate uses words
            which have a double meaning, so that in one sense he
            can claim to have said the truth, though he does in
            fact deceive, and intends to do it. He who
            prevaricates talks all round the question, hoping to
            "dodge" it, and disclose nothing.
            [1913 Webster]

  Prevaricate \Pre*var"i*cate\, v. t.
     To evade by a quibble; to transgress; to pervert. [Obs.]
     --Jer. Taylor.
     [1913 Webster]

prevaricate - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  prevaricate
      v 1: be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or
           withhold information [syn: beat around the bush,
           equivocate, tergiversate, prevaricate, palter]

prevaricate - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

  51 Moby Thesaurus words for "prevaricate":
     around the bush, back and fill, be untruthful, beat about,
     beg the question, belie, bicker, boggle, cavil, choplogic, deceive,
     dodge, draw the longbow, duck, equivocate, evade, evade the issue,
     exaggerate, falsify, fence, fib, garble, hedge, hem and haw,
     hum and haw, lie, lie flatly, mince the truth, mince words,
     mislead, misrepresent, mystify, nitpick, obscure, palter, parry,
     pick nits, pussyfoot, quibble, shift, shuffle, shy, sidestep,
     speak falsely, split hairs, story, stretch the truth, tell a lie,
     tergiversate, waffle, weasel