prevarication

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Evasion of the truth.

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

2. 2
   noun

   A false or deceitful seeming to undertake a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.

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

Borrowed from Latin praevāricātiō (“collusion with an opponent; duplicity, deceit; violation of duty, transgression”, literally “stepping out of line”), from praevāricor (“to walk crookedly; go astray; transgress”) + -tās. The virtually obsolete sense of deviation or transgression may have been influenced by an earlier stage of borrowing via Middle English prevaricacioun, prevaricacion (“deviation from the law; transgression”) from Anglo-Norman prevaricaciun (“transgression, violation of correct conduct”).

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