Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of prevaricating or deviating, especially from truth, honesty, or plain-dealing; evasion of truth or duty; quibbling or shuffling in words or conduct.
- n. Transgression; violation: as, the prevarication of a law.
- n. A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office or commission.
- n. In law: The conduct of an advocate who betrayed the cause of his client, and by collusion assisted his opponent.
- n. The undertaking of a thing falsely, with intent to defeat the object which it was professed to promote.
- n. The wilful concealment or misrepresentation of truth by giving evasive and equivocating evidence. Syn. 1. Equivocation, Shift, etc. See
evasion .
Wiktionary
- n. Deviation from what is right or correct; transgression, perversion.
- n. Evasion of the truth; deceit, evasiveness.
- n. A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.
- n. law, historical The collusion of an informer with the defendant, for the purpose of making a sham prosecution.
- n. law A false or deceitful seeming to undertake a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The act of prevaricating, shuffling, or quibbling, to evade the truth or the disclosure of truth; a deviation from the truth and fair dealing.
- n. A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.
- n. (Roman Law) The collusion of an informer with the defendant, for the purpose of making a sham prosecution.
- n. (Common Law) A false or deceitful seeming to undertake a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth
- n. intentionally vague or ambiguous
- n. the deliberate act of deviating from the truth
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman prevaricaciun, Middle French prevarication, and their source, Latin praevaricatio ("collusion with an opponent; transgression; deceit"), from the stem of praevaricari. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“But several months after the ruling, two tiny far-right groups sued Judge Garzón for 'prevarication' -- knowingly overstepping his authority -- in violating the amnesty law.”
“Miguel Bernad, head of the Clean Hands Union, a conservative group that filed the so-called prevarication charges against Judge Garzón, said his organization will continue with its efforts to oust him by requesting judiciary authorities pursue his immediate suspension and removal.”
The Wall Street Journal: Spain Judge Faces Charges Over Probe
“But the speaker for the defence will bring forward on his side the usage of common conversation; and he will seek the meaning of the word from its contrary; from a genuine accuser, to whom a prevarication is the exact opposite; or from consequents, because the tablets are given to the judge by the accuser; and from the name itself, which signifies a man who in contrary causes appears to be placed, as it were, in various positions.”
“It seems that CSIS witnesses may have engaged in "prevarication," and that material germane to Harkat's legal defence has been withheld by CSIS for no good reason.”
“You see, friends, this is the kind of prevarication I fear from an Obama administration.”
“The above correspondence also shows that there was no "prevarication" on my part.”
“And Maurice, who felt — who was certain that the young man was lying, impudently lying, was abashed by this scientific prevarication which is so universally practised in good society, and of which he was entirely ignorant.”
“Very few men would grow angry over having a statement called a "prevarication" or "a disingenuous entanglement of ideas," but there is something about the word "lie" that snaps in a man's face.”
“But Black-Eyes fancied from the blankness of his countenance that he was indulging in the same kind of prevarication with which she would have met such a question.”
“And Maurice, who felt -- who was certain that the young man was lying, impudently lying, was abashed by this scientific prevarication which is so universally practised in good society, and of which he was entirely ignorant.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘prevarication’.
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This is not a list
you know that thing where the Eskimos have 50 words for snow?
little white lie, big lie, the Big Lie, economical with t..., muddy the waters, fabrication, deception, lies, damned lies..., façade, slander, omission, web of lies and 159 more...
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POL - scandalous (words and collocati...
Words and collocations associated with political scandal
blow the whistle, boo, cronyism and rigging, democratic deficit, denigrate, dirty linen, fiasco, finger pointing a..., graft, hidden account, hush money, illicit financing... and 578 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
replete, steeped, eminent, indiscriminate, voracious, automaton, prognosticate, technology, abound, matron, tinge, compound and 297 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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DAY1_01/04/2013
Alacrity, Prosaic, Veracity, Paucity, Maintain, Contrite, Laconic, Pugnacious, Disparate, Egregious, Innocuous, Candid and 48 more...
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Official Misconduct
Words describing types of misconduct by those in public office.
malversation, embezzlement, peculation, racketeering, jobbery, misappropriation, defalcation, venality, favouritism, favoritism, nepotism, gerrymandering and 44 more...
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Previous GRE
churlish, martinet, polyglot, aplomb, dissembler, hack, dissimilitude, whit, histrionics, prevarication, pithy, aphorism and 16 more...
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GRE
sycophant, obsequious, volubility, equanimity, enervate, effrontery, impertinent, platitude, impudence, quiescent, propitiate, equivocate and 103 more...
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GRE Practice
coruscate, preternatural, preclude, retrench, perfidy, sophistry, sedulous, martinet, churlish, dissembler, prevarication, impugn and 38 more...
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aykut gre
mossy, intrusive, mettlesome, soliloquy, mocking, dissembler, prevarication, histrionics, aphorism, distinction, concise, pensive and 61 more...
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A Refined Lexicon
ambivalence, ambivalent, equivocal, equivocation, equivocate, prevaricate, prevarication, quietude, quiescent, quiescence, vanquish, pluviosity and 137 more...
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GRE Reference
A list of words unfamiliar to me that I have repeatedly encountered in GRE question sets.
parochial, clique, salacious, aegis, ostracize, conceited, sacrilegious, inane, serendipity, gourmand, polemic, tenuous and 138 more...
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five syllables
ontogenesis, phylogenesis, concatenation, androgenesis, extra textual, inexorably, spagyrically, apophenia, iatrochemist, monocotyloid, morphological, parthenogenic and 941 more...
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JesusIsLord's Words
debauchery, plethora, wiki, numinous, wormwood, scribe, gelded, mithridate, orthogonal, jaculiferous, jaculate, jactitation and 415 more...
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Need to Know!
elicit, educe, refute, cogency, churlish, martinet, veritable, polyglot, dissemble, histrionics, prevarication, verbiage and 166 more...
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my GRE words
pedant, wizened, histrionic, logorrhea, frenetic, approbation, quibble, knell, acclivity, droog, prevarication, aplomb and 182 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for prevarication.
aykutkaraalioglu means lying Jul 17, 2012