Noah Webster
Prevaricate
PREVAR'ICATE, verb intransitive [Latin proevaricor; proe and varico, varicor, to straddle.]
1. To shuffle; to quibble; to shift or turn from one side to the other, from the direct course or from truth; to play foul play.
I would think better of himself, than that he would wilfully prevaricate
2. In the civil law, to collude; as where an informer colludes with the defendant, and makes a sham prosecution.
3. In English law, to undertake a thing falsely and deceitfully, with the purpose of defeating or destroying it.
PREVAR'ICATE, verb transitive To pervert; to corrupt; to evade by a quibble. [But in a transitive sense, this word is seldom or never used.]