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The meaning of AMBIGUOUS is doubtful or uncertain especially from obscurity or indistinctness. How to use ambiguous in a sentence. Synonym Discussion of Ambiguous.
- Ambiguous has, like many words in English, more than one possible meaning; a quality some might refer to as ambiguous itself. This word may mean "d...
- The Latin prefix ambi- means "both," and has led to many people confusing ambiguous and ambivalent. Ambivalent refers to having mixed, contradictor...
- Ambiguous_ is an adjective. The noun form related to this word may be either ambiguity or ambiguousness. The adverb is ambiguously.
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May 12, 2012 · Ambiguous is when something can have more than one meaning or refer to more than one subject and the listener/reader might have difficulty knowing exactly what it is you are describing.
open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal: an ambiguous answer. Antonyms: explicit. Linguistics. (of an expression) exhibiting constructional homonymity; having two or more structural descriptions, as the sequence Flying planes can be dangerous.
- Examples and Observations
- Because
- Pun and Irony
"Brave men run in my family." – Bob Hope as "Painless" Peter Potter in The Paleface, 1948"As I was leaving this morning, I said to myself, 'The last thing you must do is forget your speech.' And, sure enough, as I left the house this morning, the last thing I did was to forget my speec..."I can't tell you how much I enjoyed meeting your husband." – William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity, 1947"We saw her duck is a paraphrase of We saw her lower her head and of We saw the duck belonging to her, and these last two sentences are not paraphrases of each other. Therefore We saw her duck is a..."Because can be ambiguous. 'I didn't go to the party because Mary was there' may mean that Mary's presence dissuaded me from going or that I went to sample the canapes." – David Marsh and Amelia Ho...
"Quintilian uses amphibolia (III.vi.46) to mean 'ambiguity,' and tells us (Vii.ix.1) that its species are innumerable; among them, presumably, are Pun and Irony." – Richard Lanham, A Handlist of Rh..."An ambiguity, in ordinary speech, means something very pronounced, and as a rule witty or deceitful. I propose to use the word in an extended sense: any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives...- Richard Nordquist
Ambiguous typically describes unclear language, or something else that one “reads” literally or figuratively. An ambiguous answer can be understood in multiple ways, and a candidate’s ambiguous stance on an issue is hard to decipher.
AMBIGUOUS definition: 1. having or expressing more than one possible meaning, sometimes intentionally: 2. having or…. Learn more.
Jun 10, 2024 · Adjective: ambiguous; Example: His ambiguous answer did not clarify the situation. Frequently asked questions about ambiguity
