Weaselled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Managed to avoid a responsibility or commitment through cunning or dishonest means
2. Escaped an obligation or difficult situation by using trickery or evasive actions
3. Used sly or indirect tactics to get out of a duty or to evade accountability

Etymology: The verb "weaselled" comes from the animal, and the animal's name is older than the English language's written record of it. The noun traces back through Middle English "wesele" and Old English "weosule" to a Proto-Germanic ancestor, "*wisulǭ", a form that is also the root of the animal's name in other Germanic languages. The creature itself was a small, long-bodied predator, and its name has been in English for well over a thousand years. The verb is far younger. It arose around 1900, and its meaning rests on a folk belief about the animal: that the weasel was notably cunning. Reputed to outwit prey and rivals alike, the weasel became a fitting image for someone who slipped out of obligations by crafty means rather than by open refusal.

Synonyms: dodged, evaded, avoided

Antonyms: confronted, faced