In this paper I will examine the relationship between speech and social conflict in Hobbes’s philosophy. I shall focus especially on equivocation, which Hobbes assumes as one of the main causes of social conflict. The paper aims to show that equivocation should be distinguished from other forms of ambiguous speech, such as metaphor and inconstancy, and, on the other hand, it tries to highlight some controversial aspects underlying Hobbes’s approach to the question of equivocation.