Palter v. t. To trifle with; to waste; to squander in paltry ways or on worthless things. (Obs.) "Palter out your time in the penal statutes."
Palter v. i. (past & past part. paltered; pres. part. paltering)
1.
To haggle. (Obs.)
2.
To act in insincere or deceitful manner; to play false; to equivocate; to shift; to dodge; to trifle. "Romans, that have spoke the word, And will not palter.""Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, Nor paltered with eternal God for power."
... that such things could be would spoil the whole world for the girl. She had to confess to herself that the customary paltering with the meaning of words that enables modern novels to be written about the damnedest things in the universe would either leave her mind uninformed, or call for a commentary—a rubric in the reddest of red letters. Even a resort to the brutal force of Oriental speech done into Jacobean ... — Somehow Good • William de Morgan
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