Amphibology
//amfɪˈbɒlədʒi// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Amphiboly. archaic, countable, uncountable
"In Athens men learn'd […] to resolve a sophisticall argument, and to confound the imposture and amphibologie of words, captiously enterlaced together […]"
- 2 an ambiguous grammatical construction; e.g., ‘they are flying planes’ can mean either that someone is flying planes or that something is flying planes wordnet
Example
More examples"In Athens men learn'd […] to resolve a sophisticall argument, and to confound the imposture and amphibologie of words, captiously enterlaced together […]"
Etymology
From French amphibologie, from late Latin amphibologia, earlier amphibolia, from Ancient Greek ἀμφιβολία (amphibolía, “ambiguity”).
More for "amphibology"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.