Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not precisely determined, determinable, or established: a person of indeterminate age.
- adj. Not precisely fixed, as to extent, size, nature, or number: an indeterminate number of plant species in the jungle.
- adj. Lacking clarity or precision, as in meaning; vague: an indeterminate turn of phrase.
- adj. Not fixed or known in advance: an indeterminate future.
- adj. Not leading up to a definite result or ending: an indeterminate campaign.
- adj. Botany Not terminating in a flower and continuing to grow at the apex: an indeterminate inflorescence.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not determinate; not settled or fixed; not definite; uncertain; not precise; not exclusively possessing either of a pair of contradictory attributes.
Wiktionary
- adj. Not accurately determined or determinable.
- adj. Imprecise or vague.
- adj. biology Of growth: with no genetically defined end, and thus theoretically limitless.
- adj. botany Of inflorescences: not topped with some form of terminal bud.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not determinate; not certain or fixed; indefinite; not precise.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not capable of being determined
- adj. not leading to a definite ending or result
- adj. of uncertain or ambiguous nature
- adj. having a capacity for continuing to grow at the apex
- adj. not precisely determined or established; not fixed or known in advance
Examples
“[And this means that] The accord between imagination as free and understanding as indeterminate is therefore not merely assumed: it is in a sense animated, enlivened, engendered by the interest of the beautiful (KCP 55).”
Notes on 'The Transcendental: Deleuze, P. B. Shelley, and the Freedom of Immobility'
“Although I, like most law professors, can do a riff on how "35" is indeterminate, that is recognized as "academic" in the most pejorative sense; unless and until some 33-year-old is viewed as the truly indispensable person to inhabit the Oval Office, it will be taken as a given that we "know" what "35" means, which means a the passage of time time measured in solar (and not, for example, lunar) years.”
“BALES: ... you get some that are called indeterminate, that just keep going all season.”
“BALES: You get some that are called indeterminate, that just keep going all season.”
“Solar Set' is a determinate variety, unlike many of our readers may be used to (called indeterminate).”
“Sex offenders would face open-ended prison sentences, known as "indeterminate," if members of a jury found them to be predatory.”
“For he that goes about the violation of a law, wherein no penalty is determined, expecteth an indeterminate, that is to say, an arbitrary punishment.”
Leviathan, or, The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill
“Under a so-called indeterminate sentence for public protection, an offender is handed a minimum term that they must serve but they will only be freed after that point if the Parole”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“For he that goes about the violation of a Law, wherein no penalty is determined, expecteth an indeterminate, that is to say, an arbitrary Punishment.”
“Alligators are believed to have what is referred to as indeterminate growth, which means they continue growing throughout their lifetime, albeit at an ever-diminishing rate.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘indeterminate’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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SCIE - EU nomenclature
All the scientific words found in the official EU nomenclature. For the screening I used Vocabgrabber of the Visual Thesaurus.
silicon, silica, shrimp, shelve, shallot, serine, seedling, septic, secretin, seaweed, screening, Scomber and 1171 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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the brothers
factotem, extrapolation, antinomy, antenome, pusillanimous, capons, caftan, pejorative, cropper, cowl, perfidious, fichu and 138 more...
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alopecia
i suppose, all of the words & phrases yoni wolf uses in alopecia, that i love.
ladies man, landmine, cavalier, consumer grade video, single's bingo, all-time gringo, calculated birth, manila envelope, mortaring, houdini, punchline, circus mirrors and 160 more...
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Words from "Pearls Before Breakfast"
nondescript, shrewd, seed money, bureaucrat, indeterminate, fungible, cupidity, banal, grandeur, utilitarian, buffer, ecstatic and 123 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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My GRE
concomitant, mendacity, corollary, mandate, ascertain, exacerbate, substantiate, perennial, exemplify, hegemony, acrimonious, repertoire and 653 more...
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pcofdirt's Words
besmirched, befuddled, ai, sanguineous, antidisestablishm..., ablation, ascertain, ascerbic, aardvark, begot, benign, buggery and 118 more...
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Yet more words
hootowling, hoot owl, midday, prohibitive, shutdown, gerund, tripe, doweling, detestable, good measure, boojum, undergirding and 167 more...
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wordsmithing part deux
because wordsmith is not a verb.
enmity, incarnate, chignon, nape, solitude, nocturne, decorum, warren, svelte, interstice, serene, charlotte and 488 more...
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English
experiential, extempore, extirpate, extrapolate, extricate, facistic, fallacious, fascistic, fastidious, flummoxed, frontispiece, fungible and 398 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for indeterminate.
john “Tomato varieties are labeled as either indeterminate or determinate, and horticulture experts recommend choosing indeterminate ones for upside-down gardens. Determinate tomato plants are stubbier, with somewhat rigid stalks that issue all their fruit at once, which could weigh down and break the stems if hanging upside down. Indeterminate types, by contrast, have more flexible, sprawling stems that produce fruit throughout the season and are less likely to be harmed by gravity. ”
The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/garden/20tomato.html, by Kate Murphy, May 19, 2010 May 20, 2010