"Tergiversation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ended, the minister wiped his steaming face and turned down his cuffs, and nods and sagacious glances went round. Yet many, even of those who had presumably passed the same ordeal with credit, exhibited gentler judgment than the preacher's on a tergiversation of which they had probably recognized some germ in their own bosoms when in the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... turned his head on one side as if he would fain escape apparition; House looked on wonderingly. At length, with something like subdued sob, DE LISLE gave way, and Members learned what had troubled him. It was dear old Mr. Dick's complaint. Standing up to present his Memorial against tergiversation of OLD MORALITY, DE LISLE could not help dragging in head of CHARLES THE FIRST. "As a Royalist," he said, "I should maintain that the House of Commons exceeded its jurisdiction when it ordered King CHARLES THE FIRST ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... opinion remained unaltered, and many persons inveighed as bitterly against the lenity of the present court-martial, as they had formerly against the severity of the sentence passed upon a late unfortunate admiral. The evidence of one gentleman in particular drew attention: he was accused of tergiversation, and of showing that partial indulgence which his own conduct required. He publicly defended his character: his performance was censured, and himself dismissed the service ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... existence any manner of body that it pleased his fancy to inhabit, or that would most conduce to the success of any contemplated evil. In consequence of this belief the devils became the rivals, indeed the successful rivals, of Jupiter himself in the art of physical tergiversation. There was, indeed, a tradition that a devil could not create any animal form of less size than a barley-corn, and that it was in consequence of this incapacity that the magicians of Egypt—those indubitable devil-worshippers—failed to produce lice, as Moses did, although ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... private opinions; and not that which he had literally expressed. On this head he seemed never satisfied; and the terms in which he spoke, both of the member who had deserted him and of all political tergiversation whatever, were the bitterest that his ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... transmigration, metempsychosis^; avatar; alterative. conversion &c (gradual change) 144; revolution &c (sudden or radical change) 146, inversion &c (reversal) 218; displacement &c 185; transference &c 270. changeableness &c 149; tergiversation &c (change of mind) 607. V. change, alter, vary, wax and wane; modulate, diversify, qualify, tamper with; turn, shift, veer, tack, chop, shuffle, swerve, warp, deviate, turn aside, evert, intervert^; pass to, take a turn, turn the corner, resume. work a change, modify, vamp, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
