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Today's Word "equivocate"

To be deliberately ambiguous to avoid committing oneself on

Published in Vocabulary

equivocate \ih-KWIV-uh-kayt\ (intransitive verb) - To be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or to avoid committing oneself to anything definite.

"My inability to prove that I did not equivocate does not always stop me from acquiring knowledge by means of the argument in question. A proof that I did not equivocate might merely play the role of confirming tat my knowledge of the conclusion was not defeated by an equivocation." -- Roy A. Sorensen, 'Vagueness and Contradiction'

 

To equivocate is literally to call equally one thing or the other: It comes from Medieval Latin aequivocare, from the Latin aequus, equal + vocare, to call (from Latin vox, voice).


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