(a.) To use words of equivocal or doubtful signification; to express one's opinions in terms which admit of different senses, with intent to deceive; to use ambiguous expressions with a view to mislead; as, to equivocate is the work of duplicity.
(v. t.) To render equivocal or ambiguous.
Example Sentences:
(1) However six equivocal studies were observed in profoundly jaundiced patients with bilirubin levels above 400 mumol l-1 due to difficulties in differentiating extrahepatic obstruction from severe intrahepatic cholestasis.
(2) The great clinical value of the procedure is shown by the following findings:X-ray-negative lesions--including 2 cases of carcinoma--were found in 35 percent of the cases, radiologically demonstrated lesions could be defined more precisely in 18 percent, and the presence of colonic lesions could be ruled out in 11 percent in spite of equivocal X-ray findings.
(3) Differentiation of thrombi from slow flow in the pulmonary arteries, sometimes observed in the presence of pulmonary arterial hypertension, can be equivocal.
(4) Conversely, the presence of unchanged intracellular or intraluminal O-acetyl sialic acid may help to exclude a diagnosis of malignancy in equivocal cases.
(5) Interpretation of scans was equivocal in another 18% of patients due to undetectable ascension of the tracer to the uterus.
(6) Endpoint events were also more common in patients with an abnormal (positive or equivocal) preoperative exercise test response than in those with a negative response (27% vs 14%); however, preoperative exercise results were not statistically significant independent predictors of cardiac risk.
(7) Radiographic appearances of tumours of the paranasal sinus are often equivocal.
(8) Of these 65 donors, 46 had normal studies, nine had pericardial effusions, five had mild septal hypokinesia with otherwise normal function, four had equivocal mitral valve prolapse, and only one heart could not be visualized.
(9) Different procurement systems have already made England a slightly "different country" for Scottish suppliers, many of whom are more concerned about Cameron's equivocal attitude towards the European Union.
(10) Tumor rates are given for each positive or equivocal effect observed in 67 studies judged to show carcinogenic effects and in the 17 studies that show equivocal effects.
(11) Conflicting and equivocal data have characterized self-reports of depression and other affects in alcoholics.
(12) None of the lesions with histologic features equivocal for HPV infection had detectable HPV DNA by in situ hybridization, though some did contain HPV DNA sequences as ascertained by filter hybridization analysis.
(13) While it is unlikely that Zardari's government had any direct link to the Mumbai attacks, there is every reason to believe that its failure effectively to crack down on the country's jihadi network, and its equivocation with figures such as Hafiz Muhammad Syed, means that atrocities of the kind we saw last week are likely to continue.
(14) Avascular lesions were the main cause for equivocal or incorrect angiographic diagnoses.
(15) A regular histologic examination was equivocal for evidence of HPV infection in four of the seven cases.
(16) No changes in regional contractility occurred with propranolol except for a minimal increase in hypokinesis in one patient at each dosage and equivocal development of a new area of slight hypokinesis in one patient and minimal apex of dyskinesis in another at the higher dosage.
(17) Enterobacteriaceae that yield zones of inhibition equal to or greater than 20 mm in diameter around 50-mug discs of carbenicillin are designated as sensitive to the drug; isolates that yield zones measuring from 18 to 19 mm in diameter are reported as of equivocal (intermediate) susceptibility to the drug, whereas those enterobacterial isolates that are characterized by zones of inhibition of 17 mm or less in diameter are interpreted as resistant to carbenicillin.
(18) Of the 47 compounds that were positive or equivocal in the alkaline unwinding assay, only carbon tetrachloride and prednisolone were negative in the mouse lymphoma assay, while 12 of the 19 compounds that were negative in the alkaline unwinding assay were positive in the mouse lymphoma assay.
(19) Cavernography should be used in the equivocal cases without hematuria or signs of fracture.
(20) It was observed that 2,4-D, dimecron, and vitavax were clastogenic, but the results obtained with benomyl and monocrotophos were equivocal.
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.