The story
- Latin · borrowed fromtergiversātus
- English todaytergiversate
Borrowed from Latin tergiversātus, perfect active participle of tergiversor (“to evade, to avoid, to turn one's back on”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from tergum (“back, hind”) + versor (“to turn”). Compare French tergiverser.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.