Ambiguous

//æmˈbɪɡ.ju.əs// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Open to multiple interpretations.

    "The politician was criticized for his ambiguous statements and lack of precision."

  2. 2
    Hesitant; uncertain; not taking sides. obsolete

    "And forasmuch as in this same question I am ambiguous, and Simplicius is resolute...."

Adjective
  1. 1
    having more than one possible meaning wordnet
  2. 2
    open to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or (often) intended to mislead wordnet
  3. 3
    having no intrinsic or objective meaning; not organized in conventional patterns wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dubiousenigmaticequivocalindistinctobscurepolysemantic

Example

More examples

"Bill Clinton spoke in ambiguous language when asked to describe his relationship with Monica Lewinsky."

Etymology

From Latin ambiguus (“moving from side to side, of doubtful nature”), from ambigere (“to go about, wander, doubt”), from ambi- (“around, about, on both sides”) + agere (“to drive, move”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.