Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards interpretation: "leading a life of alleged moral ambiguity” ( Anatole Broyard).
- n. Something of doubtful meaning: a poem full of ambiguities.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty, particularly of signification.
- n. An equivocal or ambiguous expression.
Wiktionary
- n. countable Something liable to more than one interpretation, explanation or meaning, if that meaning etc cannot be determined from its context.
- n. uncountable The state of being ambiguous.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty, particularly as to the signification of language, arising from its admitting of more than one meaning; an equivocal word or expression.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an expression whose meaning cannot be determined from its context
- n. unclearness by virtue of having more than one meaning
Etymologies
- From Middle English ambiguite, from Old French ambiguite (French ambiguïté), from Latin ambiguitas. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Being willing to play in ambiguity is much more fun and interesting than coming to a firm and unmovable decision.”
“This ambiguity is also becoming part of US policy toward Israel.”
“The key to ambiguity is to fight that urge and leave a few of the pieces of the puzzle out, or figuratively turn them 90 degrees.”
“An example of this ambiguity is the E-Data patent on "point of sale location.”
“Perhaps most representative of this ambiguity is the kiss that concludes the wedding ceremony, permission for which is granted only after bride and groom have been legally transformed into man and wife.”
“Real ambiguity, the right kind of ambiguity, is when there's absolute clarity about what happened -- and very little about what it all means.”
The Huffington Post: Deanna Fei: Why Every Writer Should Watch Jersey Shore
“That ambiguity is part of what appeals to me, and what makes her character more complex and compelling than a simple poster child for historical misogyny.”
“In any event, any ambiguity is cleared up by the guarantee of freedom of speech immediately preceding.”
“PROS: Cole's previous moral ambiguity is finally addressed; thoroughly engaging from start to finish; a quick read thanks to Resnick's smooth prose.”
“This ambiguity is due to the blurred distinction between good and evil in dualistic Eastern religions ....”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ambiguity’.
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SCIE - natural language processing
disambiguation, smoothing, log-linear model, ambiguity, EM algorithm, Markov model, anaphora, estimation, discourse level, parsing, semantic level, machine learning and 332 more...
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Wordplay & Pun
wordplay, pound, conceit, clinch, joke, quibble, equivoque, double-entendre, quillet, calembour, carriwitchet, paranomasia and 90 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Words For Novel (Part 2)
fable, sprite, syphilitic, anvil, wonderstruck, vertigo, bridled, tufted, fettered, savvy, tweed fedora, tryst and 255 more...
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Shadowkeir's list
This list, the one shown below this very message, is a collection of words that you cannot begin to fathom how much I adore. The list will also feature atithesis and contrasting words such as the t...
wishful, anticlimactic, forte, monchromatic, septic, wonderous, isoclinal, deformed, disintergrate, favourite, laughable, awe-inspiring and 250 more...
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Latin Spelling Bee List
need to know these words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
inane, ambivalent, incriminate, interrupt, amicable, meticulous, animosity, curriculum, electoral, transect, condolences, bugle and 132 more...
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five syllables
ontogenesis, phylogenesis, concatenation, androgenesis, extra textual, inexorably, spagyrically, apophenia, iatrochemist, monocotyloid, morphological, parthenogenic and 941 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
lavendargrrl's Words
surfeit, radiant, sussuration, sustenance, authenticity, aching, solitude, solicitous, limerance, compersion, philanthropy, mystery and 108 more...
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Chained Bear's Favorite Words
peruvian, sparky, poop, etymological, fuck, whatnot, pulchritude, nosh, tetched, quotidian, squalid, trajectory and 388 more...
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pixistix's Words
cumquat, circumlocution, panoply, propinquity, contumely, quietus, fardel, tmesis, tipsy, giddy, trudge, vortex and 211 more...
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colin's Words
carmine, puce, asinine, phrenetic, blight, edelweiss, supine, clusterfuck, meme, blobject, doppelganger, mesmerism and 105 more...
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chibiryuu's Words
sugary, amalgam, zaftig, incommensurability, isomorphism, fold, awesome, cute, hack, dichotomy, pyrrhic, bifurcate and 89 more...
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cloudjuice's Words
schadenfreude, sordid, promulgate, erratic, erroneous, amalgamate, sesquipedalian, incongruous, psychosis, etymology, simulacrum, serendipity and 988 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ambiguity.
Louises See dissemblance Mar 25, 2012
jmjarmstrong JM states – give me ambiguity or give me something else! Jul 16, 2011
PossibleUnderscore "Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne Dec 3, 2009
chained_bear Usage here. Oct 23, 2008