PREVARICATION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Prevarication

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/prəvˌɛrəkˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Prevarication n.

The act of prevaricating, shuffling, or quibbling, to evade the truth or the disclosure of truth; a deviation from the truth and fair dealing. "The august tribunal of the skies, where no prevarication shall avail."

A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.

(Law)

(a)

(Roman Law) The collusion of an informer with the defendant, for the purpose of making a sham prosecution.

(b)

(Common Law) A false or deceitful seeming to undertake a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.

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Etymology of 'Prevarication'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Prevarication" Quotes from Famous Books

... the judge, to evade compliance with the law, to the non-fulfillment of any duty, and to live only to enjoy his rights; he will resort, in dealing with human authorities, to the use of the same methods of propitiation, adulation, prevarication, humiliation, and deception which dominated the same God and triumphed over ...

— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera

... followed by Mirabeau's Secret Correspondence with the Court. His prevarication and double-dealing as a popular leader in the pay of the king had long been known. At least twenty persons were in the secret. One man, leaving Paris hurriedly, left one paper, the most important of all, lying about in his room. Unmistakable allusions were found among the contents of the ...

— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... feelings of an adversary. In examining and cross-examining witnesses, he has assumed their veracity, whenever it has been possible to do so; and though he has had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound for prevarication in all its forms, yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness, or involve him in self-contradiction. Adopting a quiet, gentle, and straightforward, ...

— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... a sort of hotel," said the voice, doubtfully. My hesitation and prevarication had apparently not inspired my interlocutor ...

— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... window?" I asked, as I extricated the four-year-old witness from Harriet's chiffon and violets. I doubted if young Susan had attained the years of prevarication as ...

— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

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