Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Fraught with uncertainty or doubt; undecided.
- adj. Arousing doubt; doubtful: a dubious distinction.
- adj. Of questionable character: dubious profits.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Doubting; hesitating; wavering or fluctuating in opinion, but inclined to doubt.
- Doubtful; marked by or occasioning doubt or uncertainty; difficult to determine or relieve of uncertainty; not distinct or plain; puzzling: as, a dubious question; a dubious light.
- Of uncertain event or issue: as, a dubious undertaking.
- Liable to doubt or suspicion; of doubtful quality or propriety; questionable: as, a man of dubious character; a dubious transaction; his morals or his methods are dubious. Synonyms Unsettled, undetermined.
- Doubtful, Ambiguous, etc. (see obscure, a.); questionable, problematical, puzzling.
Wiktionary
- adj. Arousing doubt; questionable; open to suspicion.
- adj. In disbelief; wavering, uncertain, or hesitating in opinion; inclined to doubt; undecided.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Doubtful or not settled in opinion; being in doubt; wavering or fluctuating; undetermined.
- adj. Occasioning doubt; not clear, or obvious; equivocal; questionable; doubtful.
- adj. Of uncertain event or issue.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. open to doubt or suspicion
- adj. fraught with uncertainty or doubt
- adj. not convinced
Etymologies
- From Latin dubius. (Wiktionary)
- From Latin dubius; see dwo- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And Dr. Fauci, I know that you would maybe argue, by the way, about the term dubious quality control.”
“Citing a number of backdated transactions and what he characterized as dubious documentation the defendants received from”
“Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), raising questions Oscar Cruz yesterday slammed the Arroyo administration for continuously invoking executive privilege over what he called dubious government contracts, the latest”
WN.com - Articles related to New Treatments Hold Hope for Failing Eyes
“I'd thought there would, instead, be discussion of Plate XV and a certain dubious bit of film.”
“And his general military historical stuff, partly on my own reading and partly on the opinions of people I respect, is occasionally interesting, but too often boiler plate wrapped in dubious generalizations, particularly in areas where he has no personal expertise such as the Aztecs and medieval Japan. levitra Says:”
“This could occur for individual employees implicated either in dubious judgment significantly below the criminal level or in multiple instances of near-dubious judgment.”
The Huffington Post: David Isenberg: Putting the Contract in Private Security Contractors
“Of holding Obama in dubious regard, given his facile demonizing tactics and his Alinskyite praxis and wholesale mendacity in general:”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Immigrants and Nazis, Communists and Cardinals
“The prosecution team includes at least four prosecutors who have been involved in dubious cases.”
“His column became increasingly unreliable as its author engaged in dubious money-making schemes.”
The Washington Post: The dirty dance between Anderson and Nixon
“At the same time, virtually every aspect of his story has also been misrepresented, embellished, and spun in dubious ways.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dubious’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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CULI - wine-tasting adjectives
In this area of expertise nouns are frequently used as adjectives (almond, bacon, cider, diesel, fennel, fresh-cut hay, wool) or new adjectives are formed (appley, berrylike, citrusy, full-bodied, ...
acetic, acidic, aged, angular, appley, astringent, attractive, austere, berrylike, big, bitter, brawny and 511 more...
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Dominant/Submissive
abusive, adamant, autocratic, bossy, bullheaded, bumptious, certain, cock-a-hoop, cocksure, cocky, commanding, compelling and 189 more...
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allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
replete, steeped, eminent, indiscriminate, voracious, automaton, prognosticate, technology, abound, matron, tinge, compound and 297 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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GRE 1100
drudgery, implore, hapless, nuance, wrest, incipient, inadvertent, tremulous, bristle, euphemism, disdain, pugnacious and 346 more...
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passive
words of inaction
abeyance, bathetic, nullify, timorous, cunctator, reticent, inertia, stagnant, languid, staid, tarry, fallow and 13 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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phil vocab 3
genocide, superfluous, warfare, indissoluble, sentient, confound, pernicious, dispose, render, amiable, paradox, puritanical and 36 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1894 more...
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queer decadence
decadent, sybaritic, effeminate, languid, dubious, happy-go-lucky, eccentric, bizarre, rantipole, devil-may-care, slaphappy, debauched and 8 more...
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1100 words you need to know
GRE words
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron, paradox, realm and 288 more...
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What Do You Mean ?
U Gotta Know These.......
falter, ruddy, flounder, pallid, fumble, founder, labile, titular, tacit, pragmatic, fatalism, jaded and 112 more...
Tweets
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qroqqa And the Latin root dub- is probably from a contraction of du- "two" + hab- "have", i.e. "be in two minds". Jan 8, 2009
chained_bear OED etymology of dubious is:
ad. L. dubis-us doubtful, f. dubium doubt, neuter of dubius doubtful.
Etymology of doubtful as a noun is:
ME. a. Of. dute, dote, doute, vbl. n. f. douter to DOUBT. The spelling doute, dought, arose from the spoken identity, which per contra caused DOUGHTY to be spelt doubty. As to the mod. spelling with b, see DOUBT v.
As a verb is:
ME. duten, douten, a. OF. duter, doter, douter, (14-16th c. also doubter):L. dubitre to waver in opinion, hesitate, related to dubius wavering to and fro, DUBIOUS. The normal 14th c. forms in Fr. and Eng. were douter, doute; the influence of Latin caused these to be artificially spelt doubt-, which in 17th c. was again abandoned in Fr., but retained in Eng.
Branch II ‘to fear, to be in fear’, a development of the verb in OF., was an early and very prominent sense of the vb. and its derivatives in ME.: cf. also REDOUBT, etc
Doesn't look like any of them come from Gaelic. Jan 8, 2009
hernesheir Irish dubh dark, black. Hence, doubtful? Jan 8, 2009