prevarication
/pɹɪˌvæɹ.ɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
prevarication means evasion of the truth. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 75 out of 100.
prevarication is pronounced /pɹɪˌvæɹ.ɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/.
Why “prevarication” is a great word
PREVARICATION — [Noun] The act of evading or deliberately avoiding the truth through deceitful equivocation. From the Latin praevāricātiō, from praevāricor ("to walk crookedly, transgress"), from prae- ("before") + vāricāre ("to straddle, walk with legs apart"). First recorded in English in the late 14th century via Anglo-Norman. Unlike "equivocation," which shrouds truth in ambiguity, or "fabrication," which constructs an outright falsehood, prevarication is the sinuous art of the deliberate sidestep. It is the politician's non-answer that fills the air with tinny sound, the lover's calculated silence that chills the space between two bodies, the child's shifting story that feels like warm wax losing its shape—a quiet erosion of trust, grain by grain, along a path walked deliberately crooked.
Etymology
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”).
noun
- Evasion of the truth.“Prevarication became the order of the day in his government while truth was a stranger in those halls.”
- Deviation from what is right or correct.
- A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.
- The collusion of an informer with the defendant, for the purpose of making a sham prosecution.
- 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.”