Entry: prevarication (n.)
In context: "At a juncture like this, men and boys get separated in terms of prevarication, I submit."
Definition: Avoidance of straightforward statement of the truth; equivocation, evasiveness, misrepresentation; deceit; an instance of this.
Other: I love this word, as well. There are several different senses in which it can be taken, though I think the above is most appropriate given the passage.
One slightly-different sense, which is related in an interesting way, is this:
Divergence from a straight line or course. Obs. rare.
...which itself has two fascinating early usages:
1600 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World xviii. xix. i. 579 The ploughman, unlesse he bend and stoupe forward..must..leave much undone as it ought to be; a fault which in Latine we call Prevarication [L. arator nisi incurvus praevaricatur]: and this tearme appropriate unto Husbandrie, is borrowed from thence by Lawyers.]
1672 I. Newton Let. 10 Dec. in Corr. (1959) I. 249 How much those errors..are increased or diminished is to be estimated by the prevarication of the rays.
SNOOT score: 4 (if you go on to explain precisely why you're using prevaricate instead of something more common), but 3 otherwise.
Page: 1048
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
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