Log in or Sign up
  1. dubious love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Fraught with uncertainty or doubt; undecided.
  2. adj. Arousing doubt; doubtful: a dubious distinction.
  3. adj. Of questionable character: dubious profits.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Doubting; hesitating; wavering or fluctuating in opinion, but inclined to doubt.
  2. 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.
  3. Of uncertain event or issue: as, a dubious undertaking.
  4. 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.
  5. Doubtful, Ambiguous, etc. (see obscure, a.); questionable, problematical, puzzling.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Arousing doubt; questionable; open to suspicion.
  2. adj. In disbelief; wavering, uncertain, or hesitating in opinion; inclined to doubt; undecided.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Doubtful or not settled in opinion; being in doubt; wavering or fluctuating; undetermined.
  2. adj. Occasioning doubt; not clear, or obvious; equivocal; questionable; doubtful.
  3. adj. Of uncertain event or issue.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. open to doubt or suspicion
  2. adj. fraught with uncertainty or doubt
  3. adj. not convinced

Etymologies

  1. From Latin dubius. (Wiktionary)
  2. From Latin dubius; see dwo- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Show 10 more examples...

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘dubious’.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • 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

Tweets

Looking for tweets for dubious.

‘dubious’ has been looked up 5479 times, loved by 11 people, added to 124 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 10.