tergiversation
C2CEFR level
98/100Rarity: very rare
FormalRegister
General noun
Evasion of straightforward action or statement, or the abandonment of a cause.
After months of tergiversation, the board finally admitted the project had failed.
Law noun
Evasive shifting of position or desertion of a stance one previously held.
The witness's tergiversation under cross-examination destroyed his credibility.
Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.
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