equivocation the use of an expression in two or more different senses in a single context. For example, in ‘The end of anything is its perfection. But the end of life is death; so death is the perfection of life’, the expression ‘end’ is first used in the sense of ‘goal or purpose,’ but in its second occurrence ‘end’ means ‘termination.’ The use of the two senses in this context is an equivocation. Where the context in which the expression used is an argument, the fallacy of equivocation may be committed. See also INFORMAL FALLACY. W.K.W.