Adjacent Words

Tergiversate definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

TER'GIVERSATE, v.i. [L. tergum, the back, and verto, to turn.]
To shift; to practice evasion. [Little 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]
2: abandon one's beliefs or allegiances [syn: apostatize, apostatise, tergiversate]

Merriam Webster's

intransitive verb (-sated; -sating) Etymology: Latin tergiversatus, past participle of tergiversari to show reluctance, from tergum back + versare to turn, frequentative of vertere to turn — more at worth Date: 1590 to engage in tergiversation • tergiversator noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.intr. 1 be apostate; change one's party or principles. 2 equivocate; make conflicting or evasive statements. 3 turn one's back on something. Derivatives: tergiversation n. tergiversator n. Etymology: L tergiversari turn one's back f. tergum back + vertere vers- turn

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Tergiversate Ter"gi*ver*sate, v. i. [L. tergiversatus, p. p. of tergiversari to turn one's back, to shift; tergum back + versare, freq. of vertere to turn. See Verse.] To shift; to practice evasion; to use subterfuges; to shuffle. [R.] --Bailey.

Moby Thesaurus

alternate, apostatize, around the bush, back and fill, beat about, beg the question, bicker, boggle, cavil, change, choplogic, come round, desert, dither, do a flip-flop, do an about-face, dodge, duck, equivocate, evade, evade the issue, fence, fluctuate, have second thoughts, hedge, hem and haw, hum and haw, mince the truth, mince words, mystify, nitpick, obscure, oscillate, palter, parry, pendulate, pick nits, prevaricate, pussyfoot, quibble, rat, renounce, repudiate, shift, shilly-shally, shuffle, shy, sidestep, split hairs, teeter, totter, turn, vacillate, vary, waffle, waver, weasel, wheel, wobble