(v. i.) To act in insincere or deceitful manner; to play false; to equivocate; to shift; to dodge; to trifle.
(v. i.) To babble; to chatter.
(v. t.) To trifle with; to waste; to squander in paltry ways or on worthless things.
Example Sentences:
(1) [Weintraub, H., Palter, K., and Van Lente, F. (1975), Cell 6, 68-110] on the patterns of tryptic digest products of histones strongly suggest that in 2 M NaCl the histones exist in conformations very similar to their conformations when bound to DNA.
(2) Using histones reconstituted with RNA and DNA celluloses, we have shown elsewhere that histones elute identically with salt from single- and double-stranded DNA, but differently from RNA (Palter and Alberts, 1979).
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.