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Feb 10, 2010
This week's theme
Verbs

This week's words
castigate
disport
prevaricate
affranchise
obnubilate
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

prevaricate

PRONUNCIATION:
(pri-VAR-i-kayt)

MEANING:
verb intr.: To avoid telling the truth by being ambiguous, evading, or misleading.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin praevaricari (to straddle, to collude), from varicare (to straddle), from varus (knock-kneed, bent outwards). To prevaricate is to straddle the boundary between truth and falsehood.

USAGE:
"Our presidents and their advisors, from Kennedy to Nixon and Ford, prevaricated, invented and outright lied for years about the course and casualties of the war."
Clancy Sigal; Caught in a Fantasy Amid Subterfuge; Los Angeles Times; Jun 29, 2001.

See more usage examples of prevaricate in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Philosophers / must ultimately find / their true perfection / in knowing all / the follies of mankind / - by introspection. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

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