Verbs for Deception

Not everyone who misleads you does it with an outright lie. Sometimes it is a vague answer, a twisted story, or a convenient silence.

This quiz covers obfuscate, equivocate, misconstrue, concoct, and condone, five verbs for confusion, evasion, and the tacit approval of the wrong thing. They appear in legal discussions, news commentary, and any workplace where honesty is in short supply.

Worth noting: obfuscate is about making content itself hard to follow; equivocate is about the speaker deliberately choosing to be vague. Obfuscation hides in the words; equivocation hides in the speaker.