ambiguous
adjective
Simple meaning
Able to be understood in more than one way; not clear.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ambigyoouhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
æmˈbɪɡjuəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Open to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or (often) intended to mislead
Open to multiple interpretations.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Open to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or (often) intended to mislead
Used this way, ambiguous is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It criticises, but without shouting.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Critical but measured
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
An expression whose meaning cannot be determined from its context.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- interpretationnoun
- meaningnoun
- meanverb
- contradictorynoun
- contextnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: open to two or more interpretations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.