prevaricate

1. 1.

   be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information

   Synonymsbeat around the bushequivocatetergiversatepalter

   Broadermisinform

Other forms of prevaricate

past tense

prevaricated·

present participle

prevaricating·

third person

prevaricates·

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 prevaricate

What does prevaricate mean?

prevaricate means "be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information".

How many syllables are in prevaricate?

prevaricate has 4 syllables: pre-var-i-cate. The stress falls on "var". In IPA it is /pɹəˈvɛɹəkeɪt/.

What is another word for prevaricate?

Close synonyms include beat around the bush, equivocate, tergiversate, palter. 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 prevaricate a common word?

prevaricate 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.