Talk:ambiguous
etymology[edit]
[Early 16th century. < Latin ambiguus "undecided" < ambigere "wander around" < agere "to lead"] Microsoft® Encarta® 2009
What are the reasons behind the different wordings in etymologies? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).
Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence.
Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meets Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion.
Rfv-sense: Vague and unclear (as opposed to open to multiple interpretations) Tagged but not listed. Honestly, I am unclear about how to distinguish this definition from the first. Kiwima (talk) 20:25, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- I guess if you hear something, and you have no idea how to interpret it, it would be "unclear", whereas if you can come up with multiple possible interpretations, it's "ambiguous"? Or maybe "ambiguous" implies a discrete number of distinct senses, whereas a "vague" word covers more of a spectrum? I don't know what a proper attestation would look like, though, since the two senses would be used in practically the same contexts -- ironically, the word ambiguous would be ambiguous.__Gamren (talk) 08:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
- The question is, are there (enough) properly attested uses of the term ambiguous meaning “vague, unclear”, where said vagueness and lack of clarity does not stem from the fact that the utterance or sign said to be ambiguous was open to multiple interpretations. (For example, if someone promises to do something as soon as “they get around to it”, it is a vague promise that fails to make clear when that might be – tomorrow? next week? next year? But it is not open to multiple interpretations. Could this nevertheless be referred to as “an ambiguous promise”?) --Lambiam 11:27, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 00:26, 4 June 2021 (UTC)