Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who palters or equivocates; an insincere dealer; a shifty person; a trifler; a trickster.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who palters.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun someone who palters

Etymologies

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Examples

  • "You are, instead, a palterer; and your life, apart from that fine song you made about me, is sheer waste."

    Jurgen A Comedy of Justice James Branch Cabell 1918

  • He is but a drunkard in his cups, thou a palterer in sobriety. '

    The Fifth Queen Crowned Ford Madox Ford 1906

  • 'I had rather she had played the villain than been such a palterer.'

    The Fifth Queen Crowned Ford Madox Ford 1906

  • In Djabal, at once enthusiast and impostor, Browning may seem, as often afterwards, to offer an apology for the palterer with truth; but in the interests of truth itself, he desires to study the strange phenomenon of the deceiver who would fain half-deceive himself.

    Robert Browning Dowden, Edward 1904

  • Take notice, I do not charge Edith as being worse in this respect than others: she may not be as bad, though it is no recommendation that she is the daughter of one who is a Machiavel on trifles and a palterer and piddler on important matters.

    Alamance; Or, the Great and Final Experiment viii, 9-151, [1] p. 1847

  • "Are you at heart a poltroon or a palterer, cruel, dull, envious, full of hate?

    From a Cornish Window A New Edition Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

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