tergiversation
/tɝd͡ʒɪvɚˈseɪʃən/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
4
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act of abandoning something or someone, of changing sides; desertion; betrayal.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
The act of evading any clear course of action or speech, of being deliberately ambiguous; equivocation; fickleness.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "They make their outward impudence their mask, as foxes, the better we may not see where they truly tend, nor their true black tergiversation beneath."
- "Anyone who desires an hour's amusement may be advised to look up the tergiversations of eminent craniologists in their attempts to prove from brain measurements that women are stupider than men."
Etymology
From Latin tergiversātiō, from tergiversārī (“to turn one's back, to evade, to avoid”) + -tiō (“-tion: forming abstract nouns”). Equivalent to tergiversate + -ion.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: tergiversātiō
- Suffix: tergiversate
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /tɝd͡ʒɪvɚˈseɪʃən/
- British English: /tɜːd͡ʒɪvəˈseɪʃən/