Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To talk or act insincerely or misleadingly; equivocate. See Synonyms at lie2.
- v. To be capricious; trifle.
- v. To quibble, especially in bargaining.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To talk in a trifling manner; babble.
- To talk insincerely; equivocate; trifle; shift; use trickery.
- To trifle away; use or spend in a paltry manner; squander.
- To fashion by trickery; patch up.
Wiktionary
- v. To talk insincerely; to prevaricate or equivocate in speech or actions.
- v. To trifle.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To haggle.
- v. To act in insincere or deceitful manner; to play false; to equivocate; to shift; to dodge; to trifle.
- v. obsolete To babble; to chatter.
- v. obsolete To trifle with; to waste; to squander in paltry ways or on worthless things.
WordNet 3.0
- v. be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information
Etymologies
- Probably from *palter ("rag, trifle, worthless thing"), from Middle Low German palter ("rag, cloth"). More at paltry. (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And I would warn you, sir, that if you palter with the truth in such little matters you may darken your more important statements with suspicion.”
““But,” continued the baron anxiously, “what hope that this juggling slave of Saladin will not palter with your Grace?””
“By Rosh Hashanah some have the tradition to be stringent and try to eat only pas yisroel by that specific chag, but the halachah is clear, pas palter bread of the baker is kosher.”
“The Shach seems to say on 115:20 that it is not like chalav akum, but rather, like pas akum the bread of the individual non-Jew, made at his or her house, NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH WHAT I MENTIONED BEFORE, which was pas palter, bread of the baker.”
“They need not palter with the stale and timid compromise and convention called Birth-Control.”
“Yet he was himself a very stern respecter of the hedgerows; sought safety and found dignity in the obvious path of conduct; and would palter with no simple and recognised duty of his epoch.”
““How, or what do you mean?” said Nigel; “I will break your head, you drunken knave, if you palter with me any longer.””
“Do not think that you should palter with the truth either because it may not be palatable to me, or seem decorous to yourself.”
“He smoked while the walker extolled his cloths, slipping his head between the rails of ready-mades and his palter inside his patter.”
“When at O'Brien's flat Winston refers to the words of the prophecy, O'Brien behaves 'as though he had recognised the allusion' (p. 185) - the prophecy being a typical example of the way, as Macbeth complains, 'these juggling fiends ... palter with us in a double sense'.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘palter’.
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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difficult words
ordure, tatterwallop, callipygian, odious, colophon, cynosure, hardener, emollience, valetudinarian, demonym, volage, polysemantic and 256 more...
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Gone, But Not Forgotten...Yet
Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day. -- Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
Obsolete, rare, and obscure words culled from my Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabi...rouzie-bouzie, knuckylbonyard, ferrups, defease, malahane, accinge, venundate, pinguidity, preterlapsed, wlatsome, emuscation, atbraid and 427 more...
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Good for Academics
Gahh!! Study!
supplant, usurp, finagle, winnow, draconian, abut, collude, swindle, objectify, incite, decadent, obstinate and 327 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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billy shakespeare's guide to good living
hurlyburly, nave, direful, whence, sooth, dwindle, tempest-tost, withal, selfsame, wrack, unfix, recompense and 142 more...
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Studying
parry, palliate, cadge, dissemble, bathos, arrogate, dilatory, ipso facto, ontogeny, recondite, specious, miasma and 90 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Words to Learn
GRE study time.
viscous, divestiture, gossamer, ponderous, sinuous, panegyric, concision, aria, propitiatory, wistful, salutary, ineluctable and 93 more...
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GRE Words
deftness, insular, patent, normative, abrasive, immutable, inscrutable, invulnerable, imperturbable, irresolute, injudicious, deft and 106 more...
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spamdad's Words
lambic, weizenbock, bock, zymurgy, vade mecum, quotidian, sesquipedalian, eremite, sphragis, privation, aegis, sui generis and 275 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3248 more...
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Of Interest
contumelious, virose, vespertine, quixotic, belletristic, frigorific, paroxysm, candor, umbrageous, vernacular, caitiff, mercurial and 43 more...
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2012 Words
Words looked up in 2012
ochreous, palter, tergiversation, twee, demonian, penetralia, somatization, verdure, nescience, lanceolate, saurian, epigon and 71 more...
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Words from freerice.com
foolscap, tabor, pilus, carom, pomelo, pluton, bulbul, dhole, duenna, poniard, breviary, bollix and 88 more...
Tweets
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