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/prəvˈɛrəkeɪt/ Listen

verb

Prevaricate v. t. To evade by a quibble; to transgress; to pervert. (Obs.)

Prevaricate v. i. (past & past part. prevaricated; pres. part. prevaricating)

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. "He prevaricates with his own understanding."

(Civil Law) To collude, as where an informer colludes with the defendant, and makes a sham prosecution.

(Eng. Law) To undertake a thing falsely and deceitfully, with the purpose of defeating or destroying it.

Synonyms: To evade; equivocate; quibble; shuffle. 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.

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Etymology of 'Prevaricate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Prevaricate" Quotes from Famous Books

... confession amid blushes—I cannot prevaricate, neither can I dissemble. Alice knew the guilelessness and singleness of my nature, and she should not have imposed that dreadful oath of secrecy upon me. I would not for all the wealth of the Indies live over again the awful ...

— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... coming, as it did, at a time of great political disturbance. Prophecies were numerous, and Lilly's brochure is only one of many that appeared at that time, most of which, however, have been lost. Lilly, in his preface, says: "If there be any of so prevaricate a judgment as to think that the apparition of these three Suns doth intimate no Novelle thing to happen in our own Climate, where they were manifestly visible, I shall lament their indisposition, and conceive their brains to be shallow, ...

— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... little, and always in a way that makes one realize how badly they need airing—but most of the nicer women are very chary of talk, they have to be drawn out, a hint of opposition makes them start back or prevaricate, and I see them afterwards with their husbands, pretty silken furry feathery jewelled silences. All their suppression doesn't keep them orthodox, it only makes them furtive and crumpled and creased in their minds—in just the way that things get crumpled and creased ...

— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... of the day. Maids and men alike knew that they must do their work, or Alison Shaw would demand the reason of any neglect or unpunctuality; and with those black eyes fixed upon them it was impossible to prevaricate or offer excuses. ...

— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... be immortal, as you probably expected me to do. My books are not quite the books I was to write when you and I were young. But I have made at worst some neat, precise and joyous little tales which prevaricate tenderly about the universe and veil the pettiness of human nature with screens of verbal jewelwork. It is not the actual world they tell about, but a vastly superior place where the Dream is realized and everything which in youth we knew was possible comes true. It is a world we have all glimpsed, ...

— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

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