tergiversation

noun
/tɝd͡ʒɪvɚˈseɪʃən/US/tɜːd͡ʒɪvəˈseɪʃən/UK

Etymology

From Latin tergiversātiō, from tergiversārī (“to turn one's back, to evade, to avoid”) + -tiō (“-tion: forming abstract nouns”). Equivalent to tergiversate + -ion.

  1. borrowed from tergiversātiō

Definitions

  1. The act of abandoning something or someone, of changing sides

    The act of abandoning something or someone, of changing sides; desertion; betrayal.

    • They make their outward impudence their mask, as foxes, the better we may not see where they truly tend, nor their true black tergiversation beneath.
  2. The act of evading any clear course of action or speech, of being deliberately ambiguous

    The act of evading any clear course of action or speech, of being deliberately ambiguous; equivocation; fickleness.

    • Anyone who desires an hour's amusement may be advised to look up the tergiversations of eminent craniologists in their attempts to prove from brain measurements that women are stupider than men.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for tergiversation. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA