Prevaricate is about dodging the truth: speaking or acting evasively so you avoid a straight answer. Procrastinate is about dodging a task: putting off something you should be doing, usually because it feels difficult or unpleasant. A politician who will not answer a question is prevaricating; a student who reorganises their desk instead of writing an essay is procrastinating.
The core difference
Prevaricate means to be evasive or misleading; procrastinate means to delay doing something.
- prevaricate — to speak or act evasively rather than give a straight answer: the minister prevaricated when asked about the budget.
- procrastinate — to keep putting off a task you should be getting on with: she kept procrastinating on the tax return until the deadline was two days away.
How to tell them apart
Both words describe avoidance, which is probably why they get muddled, but they avoid different things. Prevaricating avoids a truthful, direct answer; procrastinating avoids a task. A useful memory hook: procrastinate contains cras, from the Latin for "tomorrow" — procrastinators push things to tomorrow. Prevaricate has no such link to time; it is about walking a crooked line around the truth rather than stating it plainly.
The mix-up tends to show up in writing about work habits, where someone means "I keep delaying this" but reaches for the fancier-sounding prevaricate by mistake. If the sentence is about honesty or directness, prevaricate is likely correct; if it is about timing and delay, procrastinate is the word you want.
