equivocate

Verb

equivocate (third-person singular simple present equivocates, present participle equivocating, simple past and past participle equivocated)

1. (intransitive) To speak using double meaning; to speak ambiguously, unclearly or doubtfully, with intent to deceive; to vacillate in one's answers, responding with equivoques.
   • Knock. Knock, knock. Who's there in th'other Deuils Name? Faith here's an Equiuocator, that could ſweare in both the Scales againſt eyther Scale, who committed Treaſon enough for Gods ſake, yet could not equiuocate to Heauen: oh come in, Equiuocator.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
   • All that Garnet had to say for him was that he supposed he meant to equivocate.1687, Edward Stillingfleet, The Unreasonableness of Separation: Or, An Impartial Account of the History, Nature and Pleas of the Present Separation from the Communion of the Church of England

   Synonyms:

   prevaricate, evade, shuffle, adumbrate

2. (transitive) To render equivocal or ambiguous.
   • He equivocated his vow by a mental reservation1647, George Buck, Reign of Richard the Third