1. (n.) The act of prevaricating, shuffling, or quibbling, to evade the truth or the disclosure of truth; a deviation from the truth and fair dealing.

2. (n.) A secret abuse in the exercise of a public office.

3. (n.) The collusion of an informer with the defendant, for the purpose of making a sham prosecution.

4. (n.) A false or deceitful seeming to undertake a thing for the purpose of defeating or destroying it.

bickering blague boggling bouncer canard captiousness caviling chicane chicanery cock-and-bull story coloring confabulation distortion dodging equivocation evasion exaggeration fairy tale false coloring false swearing falsehood falsification falsifying falsity farfetched story farrago fencing fib fiction fish story flam flimflam ghost story hairsplitting half-truth hedging legal fiction lie little white lie logic-chopping mendacity miscoloring misconstruction misrepresentation misstatement nit-picking paltering parrying perjury perversion pettifoggery pious fiction pussyfooting quibbling shifting shuffle shuffling sidestepping slight stretching story straining subterfuge suppressio veri tale tall story tall tale taradiddle tergiversation trichoschistism trumped-up story untruth weasel words white lie yarn