What's the difference between astray and prevaricate?

Astray


Definition:

  • (adv. & a.) Out of the right, either in a literal or in a figurative sense; wandering; as, to lead one astray.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The single-celled organism has four "watermarks" written into its DNA to identify it as synthetic and help trace its descendants back to their creator, should they go astray.
  • (2) The willingness to ignore their misconduct has led us all astray and increased the public's lack of trust in all journalism.
  • (3) In an article for the New York Times in 2009, Krugman wrote : "As I see it, the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth."
  • (4) It didn't lure me astray – I'm done with my youthful experimenting – but it did occur to me that it was not all that helpful to parents trying to warn their kids not to try skunk when they could sample it just by breathing the air.
  • (5) The Gijon goalkeeper Ivan Cuellar was on fine form, particularly against Ronaldo, while Real’s approach play looked lethargic and too many passes went astray.
  • (6) "Market share" and other phrases can lead you astray.
  • (7) He helped us by looking into some money for the area that had gone astray.
  • (8) "Isn't it true he has been led astray by the Tories?
  • (9) This is stuff [Isis] already has.” The Pentagon cleared up some confusion about a cache going astray on Sunday that had subsequently been destroyed in a US strike, once it had been realised it was in danger of falling into Isis hands.
  • (10) Based on a review of the literature it can be said that a main obstacle to a rational approach to prevention and health promotion in the elderly, seems to be on the one side our lack of knowledge of what constitutes effective intervention, and on the other a feeling of great urgency--which may easily lead us astray.
  • (11) But if it was not a giant mental disorder, was there a huge conspiracy that led Tamerlan and Jahar astray?
  • (12) They’re not brainwashed by American R&B or led astray by song lyrics.
  • (13) Clegg came under attack from Harriet Harman yesterday when he stood in for David Cameron at prime minister's questions while students marched on Whitehall to be told that he had been "led astray" by the Tories during the negotiations to form the coalition government.
  • (14) Memory can lead us astray, but then it is a machine with many moving parts, and consequently many things that can go awry.
  • (15) It may have been built on debt and a financial sector going quietly astray, but they enjoyed 40 successive quarters of economic growth.
  • (16) In this paper, will be described how some of the most important advances were made, and where the explorers sometimes went astray.
  • (17) Sally did not see a bank statement from Nationwide for the entire period the money was going astray.
  • (18) Amid all the uncertainty, experts argue that if a warhead had gone astray in that critical period in the early 90s, it would probably have been detonated by now.
  • (19) That she has been led astray and manipulated by the abuser.
  • (20) 'They're scared to write much, in case the letter goes astray.

Prevaricate


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To shift or turn from one side to the other, from the direct course, or from truth; to speak with equivocation; to shuffle; to quibble; as, he prevaricates in his statement.
  • (v. i.) To collude, as where an informer colludes with the defendant, and makes a sham prosecution.
  • (v. i.) To undertake a thing falsely and deceitfully, with the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
  • (v. t.) To evade by a quibble; to transgress; to pervert.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The move follows months of prevarication by the prime minister with carefully worded denials.
  • (2) Second, share prices have been increasing all year in response to prevarication by the US central bank, which has struggled to raise interest rates despite signalling a willingness to do so.
  • (3) Years of failed talks and prevarication by industrialised countries have shaken his belief in the UN process.
  • (4) And yet he was back on the show as a panellist a few weeks later, and seemed no happier, telling one prevaricating contestant: "I'm tired of looking at you."
  • (5) But President Asif Ali Zardari's government, faced with a wave of public outrage, has prevaricated on the issue, and says it cannot decide on the immunity question until 14 March.
  • (6) But the international community has prevaricated to the point of inertia.
  • (7) The timeframe, though on the face of it more rapid than other redress offers by banks, should be seen against the background of more than a decade of prevarication and denial by the bank.
  • (8) Incrementally, forwards and backwards, prevaricating, bickering: so it has been for three years of European troubles that began on the periphery, in Greece, but have spread to the heartland, condemning Europe to a lost decade.
  • (9) Because denial of reality and prevarication are hallmarks of alcoholism, we make two recommendations.
  • (10) The move follows months of seeming prevarication by the prime minister with carefully worded denials.
  • (11) We urgently need the same high levels of protection in our home waters.” Kerry McCarthy, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, said: “It is now six years since the last Labour government’s Marine and Coastal Access Act and during that time the government has delayed and prevaricated on delivering a much-needed ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas.
  • (12) And at a time when we are dealing with a global climate change threat, when international borders have ebbed, when extremism doesn’t recognise nations and when we need to work together more than ever, is it really radical to quit Nato, to prevaricate over membership of the EU or trash our reputation as an internationalist party.
  • (13) She will own up to a fighting spirit, even if she prevaricates over the details.
  • (14) Lady Valentine of the business lobby group London First told the BBC she was "frustrated by 50 years of prevarication" over the issue.
  • (15) Confronted with mass discontent, the once-progressive major parties, as Thomas Frank laments in his latest book Pity the Billionaire , triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate, muzzled by what he calls "terminal niceness".
  • (16) But the meeting is overshadowed by deadlock in Athens and prevarication in Madrid.
  • (17) And I’ve never had a problem with taking decisions, or been much of a man for prevarication.” And not much of a man for regrets about the campaign he fought, though it’s no secret there were tensions between SNP strategists and the umbrella Yes campaign.
  • (18) It has given rise to a mentality in which there is so much elision of the past and subtle prevarication about race that the bogus breast-beating about the necessity of accommodating historical complexity by leaving the statue in place frankly sounds insulting to many.
  • (19) No more floundering and prevaricating, this is the time for MPs to lay down the law with strong red line amendments to the bill triggering article 50.
  • (20) But President Asif Ali Zardari's government, faced with a wave of public outrage, has prevaricated on the issue, and says it cannot decide on immunity issue until 14 March.