prevarication

prevarication
    n 1: a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth [syn:
         {lie}, {prevarication}]
    2: intentionally vague or ambiguous [syn: {equivocation},
       {prevarication}, {evasiveness}]
    3: the deliberate act of deviating from the truth [syn: {lying},
       {prevarication}, {fabrication}]
    

Prevarication \Pre*var`i*ca"tion\, n. [L. praevaricatio: cf. F.
   pr['e]varication.]
   1. The act of prevaricating, shuffling, or quibbling, to
      evade the truth or the disclosure of truth; a deviation
      from the truth and fair dealing.
      [1913 Webster]

            The august tribunal of the skies, where no
            prevarication shall avail.            --Cowper.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. (Law)
      (a) (Roman Law) The collusion of an informer with the
          defendant, for the purpose of making a sham
          prosecution.
      (b) (Common Law) A false or deceitful seeming to undertake
          a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
          --Cowell.
          [1913 Webster]
    

PREVARICATION. Praevaricatio, civil law. The acting with unfaithfulness and 
want of probity. The term is applied principally to the act of concealing a 
crime. Dig. 47, 15, 6. 
    

74 Moby Thesaurus words for "prevarication":
      bickering, blague, boggling, bouncer, canard, captiousness,
      caviling, chicane, chicanery, cock-and-bull story, coloring,
      confabulation, distortion, dodging, equivocation, evasion,
      exaggeration, fairy tale, false coloring, false swearing,
      falsehood, falsification, falsifying, falsity, farfetched story,
      farrago, fencing, fib, fiction, fish story, flam, flimflam,
      ghost story, hairsplitting, half-truth, hedging, legal fiction,
      lie, little white lie, logic-chopping, mendacity, miscoloring,
      misconstruction, misrepresentation, misstatement, nit-picking,
      paltering, parrying, perjury, perversion, pettifoggery,
      pious fiction, pussyfooting, quibbling, shifting, shuffle,
      shuffling, sidestepping, slight stretching, story, straining,
      subterfuge, suppressio veri, tale, tall story, tall tale,
      taradiddle, tergiversation, trichoschistism, trumped-up story,
      untruth, weasel words, white lie, yarn