a. and sb. [ad. L. tergiversānt-em, pres. pple. of tergiversārī: see next.] a. adj. Tergiversating, shuffling, evasive, shifty. b. sb. One who tergiversates; a turncoat, renegade.
1710. Brit. Apollo, III. No. 17. 2/1. A Future Bride, but yet under her First Courtship, and at first Opposite, Recusant and Tergiversant.
1833. Mozley, Lett., 4 July, in Ess. (1878), I. Introd. 20. I expect the tergiversants will be a considerable party.
1849. G. W. Bethune The Claims of our Country on Its Literary Men, 32. There is a fashion (for fashion dresses the inside as well as the outside of the head) of tergiversant sentimentality, a sombre affectation, which looks back admiringly and regretfully upon the middle centuries.
