Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TER-GI-VER-SA'TION, n.

1. A shifting; shift; subterfuge; evasion. Writing is to be preferred before verbal conferences, as being more free from passion and tergiversation. Bramhall.
2. Change; fickleness of conduct. The colonel, after all his tergiversation, lost his life in the king's service. Clarendon.