equivocation

1. 1.

   a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth

   Synonymsevasion

   Broadermisrepresentation

   Narrowercircumlocutiondoublespeakhedgequibble
2. 2.

   intentionally vague or ambiguous

   Synonymsprevaricationevasiveness

   Broaderuntruthfulnessambiguity
3. 3.

   falsification by means of vague or ambiguous language

   Synonymstergiversation

   Broaderfalsification

Other forms of equivocation

plural

equivocations·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about equivocation

What does equivocation mean?

equivocation means "a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in equivocation?

equivocation has 5 syllables: eq-ui-vo-ca-tion. The stress falls on "ca". In IPA it is /ɪkwɪvəˈkeɪʃən/.

What is another word for equivocation?

Close synonyms include evasion, prevarication, evasiveness, tergiversation. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is equivocation a common word?

equivocation is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with equivocation?

104 words rhyme with equivocation. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.