palter

present singular third person palters · participle present paltering · participle past paltered · past paltered · alternative paulter

1. To talk insincerely; to prevaricate or equivocate in speech or actions.

   Romans, that have spoke the word, And will not palter.

   1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

   4 more examples

   Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, Nor paltered with eternal God for power.

   1852, Alfred Tennyson, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

   "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.

   1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 70

   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.

   1922, Michael Arlen, “2/4/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

   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?’

   2010, Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles

   1. human sciencesTo give a false impression by selective use of true but misleading statements.
2. archaicTo trifle.

   Don't palter with the second rate.

   1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, paperback edition, Vintage Classics, page 100

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   Palter out your time in the penal statutes.

   1625, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Elder Brother. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   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.

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 36, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   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?

   1886, Henry James, The Princess Casamassima, London: Macmillan and Co.

   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.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 86

3. To haggle.

   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.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   1 more example

   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".

   1611, Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, page 738

4. To babble; to chatter.