Adjacent Words

Palter definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PAL'TER, v.i. [Eng. fail.] To shift; to dodge; to play tricks. Rather, to fail; to come short; to balk.
Romans,that have spoke the word
And will not palter.
PAL'TER, v.t. To squander. [Not used.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information [syn: beat around the bush, equivocate, tergiversate, prevaricate, palter]

Merriam Webster's

intransitive verb (paltered; paltering) Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1600 1. to act insincerely or deceitfully ; equivocate 2. haggle, chaffer Synonyms: see lie • palterer noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.intr. 1 haggle or equivocate. 2 trifle. Derivatives: palterer n. Etymology: 16th c.: orig. unkn.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Palter Pal"ter, 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.'' --Beau. & Fl.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Palter Pal"ter, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Paltered; p. pr. & vb. n. Paltering.] [See Paltry.] 1. To haggle. [Obs.] --Cotgrave. 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. --Shak. Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, Nor paltered with eternal God for power. --Tennyson. 3. To babble; to chatter. [Obs.]

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. n. Equivocate, shuffle, dodge, haggle, shift, quibble, evade, prevaricate, trifle.

Moby Thesaurus

around the bush, back and fill, bargain, beat about, beg the question, bicker, boggle, cavil, chaffer, choplogic, dicker, dodge, duck, equivocate, evade, evade the issue, falsify, fence, fib, hedge, hem and haw, higgle, huckster, hum and haw, lie, mince the truth, mince words, mystify, nitpick, obscure, parry, pick nits, prevaricate, pussyfoot, quibble, shift, shuffle, shy, sidestep, split hairs, tergiversate, waffle, weasel