prevarication

From Anglo-Norman prevaricassion, Middle French prevarication, and their source, Latin praevāricātiō (“collusion with an opponent; transgression; deceit”), from the stem of praevāricor.

• (non-merged vowel) IPA^(key): /pɹɪˌvæɹɪˈkeɪʃən/

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• (merged vowel) IPA^(key): /pɹɪˌvæɹəˈkeɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

prevarication (countable and uncountable, plural prevarications)

1. (now rare) Deviation from what is right or correct.

   Synonyms: transgression, perversion

2. Evasion of the truth.

   Synonyms: deceit, evasiveness

   Prevarication became the order of the day in his government while truth was a stranger in those halls.

   • 1782, William Cowper, “Retirement”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 291:

     The trumpet—vvill it ſound? the curtain riſe? And ſhow th' auguſt tribunal of the ſkies, / VVhere no prevarication ſhall avail, / VVhere eloquence and artifice ſhall fail, […]

   • 1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XIII, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I, page 239:

     The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.

   • 2012 October 6, “Charlemagne: Mysterious Mariano”, in The Economist‎:

     Mr Rajoy frustrates many with his prevarication over a fresh euro-zone bail-out, which now comes with a conditional promise from the European Central Bank (ECB) to help bring down Spain’s stifling borrowing costs.

3. A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.
4. (Ancient Rome, law, historical) The collusion of an informer with the defendant, for the purpose of making a sham prosecution.
5. (law) A false or deceitful seeming to undertake a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
   • 1628, Robert Le Grys, Argenis, translation of original by John Barclay:

     If it shall appeare, that they haue forfeited their Faith, or wronged their Client by preuarication.

• prevaricate
• prevaricator

• lie
• equivocate

• “prevarication”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Prevarication in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

prevarication f (plural prevarications)

1. prevarication (deviation from what is right)

• → English: prevarication
• French: prévarication