tergiversation

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The act of abandoning something or someone, of changing sides; desertion; betrayal.

   They make their outward impudence their mask, as foxes, the better we may not see where they truly tend, nor their true black tergiversation beneath.

2. 2
   noun

   The act of evading any clear course of action or speech, of being deliberately ambiguous; equivocation; fickleness.

   Anyone who desires an hour's amusement may be advised to look up the tergiversations of eminent craniologists in their attempts to prove from brain measurements that women are stupider than men.

From Latin tergiversātiō, from tergiversārī (“to turn one's back, to evade, to avoid”) + -tiō (“-tion: forming abstract nouns”). Equivalent to tergiversate + -ion.

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