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A statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth
Answer for the clue "A statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth ", 12 letters:
equivocation
Alternative clues for the word equivocation
Word definitions for equivocation in dictionaries
Wikipedia
Word definitions in Wikipedia
Equivocation is a verbal technique by which a magician appears to have a particular outcome, when in actuality the outcome is one of several alternatives. "In essence equivoque is the process of psychological forcing combined with double entendre."
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. 1 (context logic English) A logical fallacy resulting from the use of multiple meanings of a single expression. 2 The use of expressions susceptible of a double signification, possibly intentionally and with the aim of misleading.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Equivocation \E*quiv`o*ca"tion\, n. The use of expressions susceptible of a double signification, with a purpose to mislead. There being no room for equivocations, there is no need of distinctions. --Locke. Syn: Prevarication; ambiguity; shuffling; evasion; ...
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., "fallacy of using a word in different senses at different stages of the reasoning" (a loan-translation of Greek homonymia , literally "having the same name"), from Old French equivocation , from Late Latin aequivocationem (nominative aequivocatio ...
Usage examples of equivocation.
Dismas, because of his drug habit, might be involved with the heretics who had recently tried to set fire to the floating docks, but it must be the merest of hints hedged round with equivocation, for the Aedile was certain that if Dr.
Theydammitand Diana were the three designees from the English department, and while Phil gave Rob highest marks, Gloria was busy with equivocations.
Diana were the three designees from the English department, and while Phil gave Rob highest marks, Gloria was busy with equivocations.
It is better to remain silent than to make strangers laugh by odd expressions and absurd equivocations.
Voltaire, in spite of his genius, would not perhaps have reached posterity under his name of Arouet, especially amongst the French, who always give way so easily to their keen sense of ridicule and equivocation.
The equivocation was innocent because it was not premeditated, for if I had thought it over I should never have said such a thing.
The people of that period considered it indispensable to translate the whole world into a forest of Symbols, Hints, Equestrian Games, Masquerades, Paintings, Courtly Arms, Trophies, Blazons, Escutcheons, Ironic Figures, Sculpted Obverses of Coins, Fables, Allegories, Apologias, Epigrams, Riddles, Equivocations, Proverbs, Watchwords, Laconic Epistles, Epitaphs, Parerga, Lapidary Engravings, Shields, Glyphs, Clipei, and if I may, I will stop here—but they did not stop.
It would integrate the encyclical's clashing elements—the contradictions, the equivocations, the omissions, the unanswered questions—into a consistent pattern.
Today, that line is lost under layer upon layer of evasions, equivocations and plain falsehood.
Evasions, equivocations and guilty apologies will not work any longer.
Layer by layer, they would peel off his equivocations until the nothing that was the essential Blott was revealed quite naked and then they would shoot what was left for desertion.
Even though her comments were frequently obscure, sometimes frightening, he would rather hear honest words that he could not understand because of his own stupidity than equivocations deliberately constructed to hide the truth.
There was the Bay of Fraud, the Bay of Incontinence, the Bay of Sorrow, the Bay of Equivocations, and Bays of Forgetfulness, Hunger, Disease, Combat, and Injustice.
He'd been content to be fobbed off with hints and equivocation, and he might have continued to be content, if he hadn't been irritated by the zarzi and the lateness of the L'Himby train, bored and ready for an argument.