- 1
Prevarication is the act of hiding the truth by not answering questions directly. It is the noun that matches : the dodging itself, not the person doing it. In formal writing you might read that an answer was full of prevarication — lots of fog, almost no fact. People use it when they want a cool, slightly legal-sounding word for verbal wriggling. Though actually, older English also used this word more widely, for off the right path — breaking a rule, going astray. That wider sense has almost died. Today it almost always means the not-straight answer.
含糊其辭、閃爍其詞（指這種行為，不是動詞。）
組成From Latin praevāricātiō, literally “stepping out of line,” from praevāricor (“to walk crookedly”) with a noun ending. English also had an older borrowing through Middle English / Anglo-Norman for “breaking the rule,” which may have coloured the now almost dead “going astray” sense.
同家族的字
- prevaricatethe verb: to dodge a straight answer
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
prevaricationnoun/pɹɪˌvæɹ.ɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
- 1
Evasion of the truth.
- Prevarication became the order of the day in his government while truth was a stranger in those halls.
- The trumpet—vvill it ſound? the curtain riſe? And ſhow th' auguſt tribunal of the ſkies, / VVhere no prevarication ſhall avail, / VVhere eloquence and artifice ſhall fail, […]
- 2
archaicDeviation from what is right or correct.
- 3
A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.
- 4
historicallawThe collusion of an informer with the defendant, for the purpose of making a sham prosecution.
- 5
lawA false or deceitful seeming to undertake a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
- If it shall appeare, that they haue forfeited their Faith, or wronged their Client by preuarication.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。