prevaricate
/prɪˈvarɪkeɪt
/verb [no object]
Speak or act in an evasive way: he seemed to prevaricate when journalists asked pointed questions...
- Not dissembling, not equivocating, not prevaricating, not misinforming, not distorting.
- As for the moral arguments, let's insist on a full and complete discussion of those too - without the usual shilly-shallying and prevaricating.
- That is they kept quibbling and prevaricating and showing stubbornness.
Usage
The verbs prevaricate and procrastinate have similar but not identical meanings. Prevaricate means ‘act or speak in an evasive way’, as in he prevaricated at the mention of money. Procrastinate, on the other hand, means ‘put off doing something’, as in the Western powers will procrastinate until it is too late. The meanings are closely related—if someone prevaricates they often also procrastinate—and this can give rise to confusion in use.
Derivatives
prevarication
/ noun ...- Even so, he has continued his policy of deception and prevarication.
- Now we are fed big pills of outright lies, prevarication, and deception.
- I met people who had endured 12 hours of mis-information and prevarication before they boarded a plane.
prevaricator
- They are all castrated, effete prevaricators, and there isn't a real man among them to stand up and dare say the truth.
- The machine has no respect for doubters or prevaricators; it has no patience for those uncertain of their position.
- But the future of these two relatively junior prevaricators is not really the point.
Origin
Mid 16th century (earlier (Middle English) as prevarication and prevaricator), in the sense 'go astray, transgress': from Latin praevaricat- 'walked crookedly, deviated', from the verb praevaricari, from prae 'before' + varicari 'straddle'.