Madam, are you questioning the ___ of my expense-account report?
veracity
She’s an unusual person—a political leader who is known for her ___.
veracity
The congressman ___ during a discussion of stem-cell research at a White House conference in order to delay the vote and create more time for his committee members to lobby opponents of the upcoming bill.
temporized
In an effort to help their accomplice steal some chips from the corner deli, the two hoodlums ___ with the man at the cash register, distracting him with stories about the old neighborhood.
temporized
The congregants were deeply disappointed to learn that the deacon had been ___, and had taken the offering and eloped with the preacher’s daughter.
dissembling
He wanted to go into politics, so he took courses in drama to perfect his already significant ___ skills
dissembling
“Telling me you had to work late last night was pure ___,” Alyssa shouted at her husband. “I know you were out playing cards with the boys to avoid having dinner with my mother.”
subterfuge
Through careful ___, including dipping his thermometer into a cup of hot tea when his mother wasn’t looking, Harvey managed to convince his parents that he was far too sick to go to school.
subterfuge
The reporter asked if all the talk about discussing, considering, and appointing a committee was just ___ for the fact that no real action was planned.
circumlocution
Silent Cal Coolidge was known for his short, direct answers; he was not given to ___.
circumlocution
The skillful candidate’s artful ___ led people on both sides of the issue to conclude that he agreed with them.
equivocations
Some salesmen and office-seekers seem to make a vocation out of ___.
equivocation
The teacher was never sure if Randy was making ___, but his sniggering classmates knew.
double entendres
Hannibal the cannibal was making a ___ when he said he was having an old friend over for dinner.
double entendre
The offended gentleman insisted that the comment was a base ___, and demanded an apology
canard
The speech was short on policy statements, long on ___ lobbed at the opposing party.
canards
In Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities the unreliable character John Barsad fears he will be apprehended in France despite “his utmost ___.”
tergiversation
President George H. W. Bush is remembered for his clever phrase, “Read my lips. No new taxes,” but not everyone remembers that he later ___ on that issue.
tergiversated
He’s being ___—intentionally misrepresenting the truth through calculated omission of information.
subreptious
Too late they discovered that the fund managers were engaging in ___—cooking the books to give the clients and auditors a picture that was much rosier than the truth.
subreption