You searched for: “prevaricators
prevaricator (s) (noun), prevaricators (pl)
1. Someone who repeatedly lies or refuses to be honest: There are some prevaricators who make a habit of always fibbing or trying to hoodwink people by exaggerating everything they say to other people.
2. Anyone who speaks so as to avoid the precise truth; a quibbler; an equivocator: A prevaricator originally meant a straddled or a bent-legged person with crooked legs or someone who, because of distorted legs, could not walk in a straight line; now, it is someone who purposely deviates or avoids speaking truthfully.
3. Etymology: from Latin praevaricator which came from prevaricatus; the past participle of the verb prevaricari, "to lie; literally, "to walk crookedly", as if "straddling something"; from prae, "before" + varicare, "to straddle, to walk crookedly".
Someone who does not tell the truth, a liar.
© ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.

This entry is located in the following units: -or; -our (primarily British) (page 11) pre-, prae- (page 19) vari- (page 1)