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Equivocation   /ɪkwɪvəkˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Equivocation

noun
1.
A statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth.  Synonym: evasion.
2.
Intentionally vague or ambiguous.  Synonyms: evasiveness, prevarication.
3.
Falsification by means of vague or ambiguous language.  Synonym: tergiversation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Equivocation" Quotes from Famous Books



... sittings, who forthwith summoned Jack before them to know why he refused performance of his contract with the Squire. Jack came on the day appointed, attended by the attorney—though for that matter he might have safely left him behind, being fully as much master of all equivocation or chicanery as if he had never handled anything but quills and quirks from his youth upward. This, indeed, was probably the effect of his old training in Peter's family, for whose hairsplitting distinctions and Jesuistical casuistries, notwithstanding his dislike to the man ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... If an equivocation had been natural or easy to Marion, she might have been ready with several now, which perhaps would have satisfied Miss Ashton; but she was a straightforward, honest girl, who never in her whole life had been placed before where she hesitated what to answer; if she had been a culprit to-night, ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... quivering; and some sense of what he was doing, or was about to do, reached his brain through the fumes of rage. There was yet a long struggle; for he was too ponderous for quick decisions, and at the same time too outright for successful equivocation. Defeat was always a staggering blow to him, since he had no art to mask it. And now, lacking the sagacity to swallow his mortification and to bide his time, he could only suffer, rending himself in lieu of another on whom to pour ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... party would lose the advantages which they might derive from his character of representative of his brother, was determined to conceal his death; and Joutel, as he himself confesses, took part in the deceit. Substituting equivocation for falsehood, they replied that he had been with them nearly as far as the Cenis villages, and that, when they parted, he was in good health. This, so far as they were concerned, was, literally speaking, true; ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... Minnes and I had an angry bout this afternoon with Commissioner Pett about his neglecting his duty and absenting himself, unknown to us, from his place at Chatham, but a most false man I every day find him more and more, and in this very full of equivocation. The fleete we doubt not come to Harwich by this time. Sir W. Batten is gone down this day thither, and the Duchesse of Yorke went down yesterday to meet ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys


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