SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
evasion
noun
An act of avoiding a duty, difficulty, or direct response.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Avoidance or indirect reply
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topEquivocation concerns ambiguous speech; shirking concerns avoiding a responsibility.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See evasion in use
Her repeated changes of subject sounded like evasion rather than an answer.
When readers asked what had gone wrong, the editor's first reply was an evasion: it discussed the bulletin's volunteer effort without answering the question about the copied sentence.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license