Equivocation

Research

Using the same term with two different meanings within a single argument, so the conclusion appears to follow when it does not — the classic example: "laws of nature are laws; laws require a lawgiver; therefore nature has a lawgiver."

Sources

1. Merriam-Webster — equivocation merriam-webster.com accessed 17 September 2026
2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — “Fallacies”, Hans Hansen (first published 29 May 2015; substantive revision 30 August 2024) plato.stanford.edu accessed 22 September 2026

Merriam-Webster records the word as “deliberate evasiveness in wording: the use of ambiguous or equivocal language”, or “an ambiguous or deliberately evasive statement”. First recorded 1609. That is the ordinary-language sense: being slippery on purpose.

The technical sense is the one the Stanford Encyclopedia’s entry on fallacies defines: “The fallacy of equivocation is an argument which exploits the ambiguity of a term or phrase which has occurred at least twice in an argument, such that on the first occurrence it has one meaning and on the second another meaning.”

The dictionary citation above sources the word, its history and its ordinary meaning. The technical sense this entry defines — which the dictionary does not record, as this page previously stated — is now sourced to a signed, dated reference entry in the discipline’s own literature.

Related terms

• Abbreviation
• Abstract
• Abstraction
• Academic Database
• Analysis
• Annotation

Rewritten from a truncated AJG archive entry, August 2026.