prevaricate

intransitive-verb
UK: /prɪˈvær.ɪ.keɪt/
US: /prɪˈvær.ɪ.keɪt/

  1. To avoid telling the truth or saying exactly what you think.

    1. Don't prevaricate; tell me what happened.
    2. When asked about the company's financial troubles, the CEO seemed to prevaricate.

  2. To speak or act in an evasive way, especially to mislead someone.

    1. He tends to prevaricate when he's nervous.
    2. The politician was accused of trying to prevaricate about his involvement in the scandal.

Synonyms

evade hedge equivocate stall dodge quibble
prevaricate noun

  1. The act of avoiding telling the truth or saying exactly what you think.

    1. His prevarication made it hard to believe him.
    2. The witness's prevarication during the trial raised suspicions about his honesty.

Frequently Asked Questions

The word "prevaricate" in English means: To avoid telling the truth or saying exactly what you think., To speak or act in an evasive way, especially to mislead someone..

The phonetic transcription of "prevaricate" is /prɪˈvær.ɪ.keɪt/ in British English and /prɪˈvær.ɪ.keɪt/ in American English. Click the 🔊 button to hear both pronunciations.

Synonyms for "prevaricate": evade, hedge, equivocate, stall, dodge, quibble.

Example usage of "prevaricate": "Don't prevaricate; tell me what happened.". More examples on the page.