palter
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Probably from Middle English *palter (“rag, trifle, worthless thing”), from Middle Low German palter (“rag, cloth”). More at paltry.
Inflected forms:
form: palters
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: paltering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: paltered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: paltered
pos: verb
tags: past
form: paulter
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: To talk insincerely; to prevaricate or equivocate in speech or actions.
pos: verb
examples: Romans, that have spoke the word,
 And will not palter.
Who never sold the truth to serve the hour,
 Nor paltered with eternal God for power.
"The hat," he said, "might have been managed, and the trousers could have been lent, but the coat, Mr Bunion, was beyond our means." Which piece of information being delivered in a very grave voice, and a confidential manner, the curate had, perforce, to accept; but inwardly he had a profound suspicion that the tall man was paltering with the truth.
But, with a gesture, she put a period to this dalliance—one shouldn't palter so on an empty stomach, she might almost have said.
I would prevaricate and palter in my usual plausible way, but, this being Cambridge, such stratagems would cut no ice with my remorseless and (in my imagination) gleefully malicious interrogator, who would stare at me with gimlet eyes and say in a harsh voice that crackled with mocking laughter: ‘Excuse me, but do you even know who Lermontov is?’
gloss: To talk insincerely; to prevaricate or equivocate in speech or actions.
pos: verb
gloss: To trifle.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
examples: Palter out your time in the penal statutes.
Behold this man, stored with genius, wit, learning, and a hundred good natural gifts: see how he has wrecked them, by paltering with his honesty, and forgetting to respect himself.
He waited and waited, in the faith that Schinkel was dealing with them in his slow, categorical Teutonic way, and only objurgated the cabinetmaker for having in the first place paltered with his sacred trust. Why hadn't he come straight to him—whatever the mysterious document was—instead of talking it over with French featherheads?
Don't palter with the second rate.
So enfeebled was resolution in him that he could only palter at a fatuous picture of himself carrying Podson bodily over the lagoon and dumping him on the sand dunes.
gloss: To haggle.
pos: verb
examples: Herceler. Voyez to haggle, to dodge. N.b. Cotgrave defines herceler/harceler by example: "to haggle, hucke, hedge, or paulter long in the buying of commodity".
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
 That palter with us in a double sense;
 That keep the word of promise to our ear,
 And break it to our hope.
gloss: To babble; to chatter.
pos: verb
Derived words: palterer
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: усуквам
roman: usukvam
lang: Bulgarian
word: извъртам
roman: izvǎrtam
lang: Chinese Mandarin
word: 敷衍搪塞
roman: fū yǎn táng sè
lang: Finnish
word: vilpistellä
lang: Finnish
word: kieroilla
lang: Finnish
word: kierrellä ja kaarrella
lang: Russian
word: виля́ть
roman: viljátʹ
lang: Russian
word: темни́ть
roman: temnítʹ
lang: Russian
word: извора́чиваться
roman: izvoráčivatʹsja
lang: Spanish
word: insincero
lang: Spanish
word: mentir