Meaning & use
ambiguity
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountable
The quality of a word, sentence or statement that can be understood in more than one way.
Grammar: Uncountable for the quality (there is ambiguity); countable for a case (several ambiguities).
Patterns
- ambiguity in something
- the ambiguity of something
The ambiguity in the contract led to a legal dispute.
There is some ambiguity in the phrase 'old friends'.
Lawyers try to remove all ambiguity from the wording.
noununcountable
A situation in which things are unclear, uncertain or open to different interpretations.
Grammar: Often used about feelings, plans or moral questions: moral ambiguity.
Patterns
- moral ambiguity
- tolerate ambiguity
Some people dislike the ambiguity of an open-ended project.
The film is full of moral ambiguity.
She could not stand the ambiguity about her job future.
Word forms
| plural | ambiguities |
|---|
Common combinations
- remove ambiguity
- Clear definitions remove ambiguity.
- deliberate ambiguity
- The politician used deliberate ambiguity in his answer.
- moral ambiguity
- The novel deals with moral ambiguity in wartime.
- leave room for ambiguity
- The rules leave room for ambiguity.
- avoid ambiguity
- To avoid ambiguity, state the date and the time.
Synonyms and how they differ
- vagueness
- Vagueness means being unclear or imprecise, while ambiguity means there are two or more specific meanings.
- uncertainty
- Uncertainty is a general lack of certainty about facts, whereas ambiguity is about meaning being open.
- equivocation
- Equivocation is deliberately using unclear language to avoid answering, so it is a choice that ambiguity need not be.
- obscurity
- Obscurity means being hard to understand or little known, which is different from having multiple clear meanings.
Opposites
Word family
- ambiguous adjective
- open to more than one meaning
- ambiguously adverb
- in an unclear way
- unambiguous adjective
- having only one clear meaning
- disambiguate verb
- to remove ambiguity
Commonly confused: ambiguity or ambivalence?
ambiguity vs ambivalence
Ambivalence means having mixed feelings about something, while ambiguity is about unclear meaning.
Practice
The sentence 'I saw her duck' has an ______ because duck could be a bird or an action.
Choose one answer.
An ambiguity is a statement with two possible meanings; ambition, amnesty and analogy are different words.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ambiguity”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.