The word is out
What part of tergiversate do you not understand?
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/12/2011 (5236 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
NEXT time your kids ask if they can have their allowance, tell them you’re tergiversating about whether they deserve it or not.
When the Dictionary.com “word-of-the-year” committee was batting about contenders for 2011’s top spot, they were looking for some verbiage “that aptly defines the spirit of 2011.”
Out of the online dictionary rose a word so apt, it covered events as wide-ranging as the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring and the stock market: tergiversate (pronounced “ter-JIV-er-sate”).
According to the online word source, tergiversate means to change repeatedly one’s attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; equivocate.
Some could call it flip-flopping, but a kinder synonym might be updating one’s opinion based on new facts.
“The stock market, politicians and even public opinion polls have tergiversated all year long,” said a news release from Dictionary.com.
“One could say that events in Tahrir Square continue to tergiversate as sharply now as they did in the spring,” it said.
Tergiversate is derived from the Latin word “vertere,” to turn. It shares a root with the words “verse” and “versus.”
Last year’s word was change.
The 2011 runners-up:
— zugzwang — a situation in chess in which a player is limited to moves that cost pieces or have a damaging positional effect.
— oppugnancy — opposing; antagonistic; contrary.
— internecine — of or pertaining to conflict or struggle within a group.
— quietus — a finishing stroke; anything that effectually ends or settles.
— occupy — to be a resident or tenant of; dwell in.
— winning — charming; engaging; pleasing.
— spring — to come or appear suddenly, as if at a bound.
— jobs — a post of employment; full-time or part-time position.
— austerity — severity of manner, life, etc.; sternness.
— bifurcating — to divide or fork into two branches.
— iconoclasm — the action or spirit of a destroyer of images, especially those set up for religious veneration.
— schismatic — of, pertaining to, or of the nature of division or disunion, especially into mutually opposed parties; guilty of division or disunion.
— topple — to overthrow, as from a position of authority.
— uprising — an insurrection or revolt.
— Postmedia News