Paltering

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. The practice of employing deceptive language that appears truthful but is meant to mislead or create confusion about reality
2. Engaging in communication tactics that utilize seeming honesty while masking intentions through misleading phrasing or statements
3. The act of using ambiguous or misleading language to convey a false sense of truth, while concealing real intentions or facts about a situation

Etymology: "Paltering" is the present participle and gerund of "palter", and the verb's roots lie in cloth and rubbish rather than in deceit. Its probable ancestor in Middle English was a word meaning a rag, a scrap, or a worthless trifle, and that word likely came from Middle Low German, where "palter" meant a rag or piece of cloth. The connection to "paltry", which describes something small and worthless, runs through the same idea of scraps that have little value. How a word for shabby cloth came to mean trickery is not fully documented, but the sense seems to have moved from handling worthless things to handling words in a worthless or evasive way. To palter was to speak or act with shifty ambiguity, saying things that sound meaningful while hiding the truth. The modern noun and verb keep that sense of misleading language, so that someone who paltered is someone who quibbles or equivocates rather than plainly telling the truth.