Word.ws English Dictionary

prevaricating

prevaricating is the present participle and gerund of prevaricate.

Meaning of prevaricate

Verb

prevaricate (third-person singular simple present prevaricates, present participle prevaricating, simple past and past participle prevaricated)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete, transitive) To deviate, transgress; to go astray (from).
  2. (intransitive) To speak or act in a manner that is intentionally ambiguous or evasive; equivocate.
    • The people saw the politician prevaricate every day.
    Synonyms:
    equivocate, waffle, evade
    Antonyms:
    direct
  3. (intransitive) To collude, as where an informer colludes with the defendant, and makes a sham prosecution.
  4. (UK) To undertake something falsely and deceitfully, with the purpose of defeating or destroying it.

Questions about prevaricating

What is prevaricating the present participle and gerund of?
Prevaricating is the present participle and gerund of prevaricate.

Words near prevaricating in the dictionary

  1. prevaricate
  2. prevaricated
  3. prevaricates
  4. prevaricatest
  5. prevaricateth
  6. prevaricating
  7. prevaricatingly
  8. prevarication
  9. prevarications
  10. prevaricative
  11. prevaricator

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prevaricating (page history and authors); prevaricate (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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Cite this entry: “prevaricating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prevaricating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.