prevaricate
verb

- to avoid telling the truth or saying exactly what you think

(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

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DID YOU KNOW?

British writer and satirist Samuel Butler said that "Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well." The question is, what does it mean to lie, or to prevaricate or even to fabricate?

The Oxford Dictionary provides a nice explanation of various ways to "stretch the truth" as we sometimes like to say:

To lie - If your partner asks if you remembered to mail the tax forms and you say "Yes," even though you know they're still sitting on the passenger seat of the car, you're telling a lie, which is a deliberately false statement.

To prevaricate - If you provide a lengthy explanation of the day's frustrations and setbacks, the correct word would be prevaricate, which is to quibble, dodge the point, or confuse the issue so as to avoid telling the truth.

To fabricate - If you invent a story about an accident in front of the post office that prevented you from finding a parking space, fabricate is the correct verb.

To equivocate - If your partner asks, "Did you take care of the taxes today?" and you say "Yes," knowing that you finished completing the forms and sealing them in the envelope, but that you didn't actually get them to the post office, then you have equivocated (saying one thing but meaning another).

NOTE

Prevaricate is often confused with procrastinate, which means to delay.

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SYNONYMS

beat around the bush, belie, cavil, con, deceive, distort, dodge, equivocate, evade, fabricate, falsify, fib, garble, hedge, invent, lie, misrepresent, misspeak

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today. Say something like:

"Some would say that to become a politician, one needs to master the art of PREVARICATION."