Word.ws English Dictionary

pollyfox

pollyfox verb: to equivocate; to dodge the issue.

Verb

pollyfox (third-person singular simple present pollyfoxes, present participle pollyfoxing, simple past and past participle pollyfoxed)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) To equivocate; to dodge the issue.
    • Considerable time was taken up in skirmishing and pollyfoxing to secure the advantage in the start.1866 January 20, New York Clipper 1866-01-20: Vol 13 Iss 41
    • […]whose patience had been worn out by the swiftly-lengthening roll of crime and the pollyfoxing of courts.1891 September 3, Rushville Republican (1891-09-03)
    Synonyms:
    pussyfoot

Examples of pollyfox in a sentence

  • There is more pollyfoxing and more attempt to evade the question.1897 July 24, Congressional Record July 2-24, 1897: Vol 30:
  • Judge Stewart calls the lawyers down when they pollyfox in a case.1917, The American Dialect Society, Dialect Notes:
  • […]Ickes maintained that Texaco was 'pollyfoxing' him while lobbying behind the scenes[…]1975, Sampson, Anthony, The Seven Sisters : the Great Oil Companies and the World They Made:

Synonyms of pollyfox

Forms of pollyfox

third-person singular presentpollyfoxes
present participlepollyfoxing
past participlepollyfoxed
pastpollyfoxed
alternative formpolly-fox

Origin of pollyfox

Attested since 1860s. Unknown etymology - a column in a 1921 issue of The Weekly Review speculated it might be an eponym.

Questions about pollyfox

What does pollyfox mean?
Pollyfox means to equivocate; to dodge the issue.
How do you use pollyfox in a sentence?
There is more pollyfoxing and more attempt to evade the question.
What part of speech is pollyfox?
Pollyfox is a verb.
What is the past tense of pollyfox?
The past tense of pollyfox is pollyfoxed.

Words near pollyfox in the dictionary

  1. Pollyannaism
  2. pollyannas
  3. pollyannish
  4. Pollyannism
  5. pollyblobs
  6. pollyfox
  7. pollyfoxed
  8. pollyfoxes
  9. pollyfoxing
  10. pollyspeak
  11. pollywig

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pollyfox (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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