Home / Words / ambiguousNo. 0021

ambiguous

/æmˈbɪɡjuəs//æmˈbɪɡjuəs/·adjective
open to more than one interpretation; not having one clear meaning
Fig. 1 — I watch a muddy pool with its surface churning, and on the bottom there are shapes — stones, a fish — that the water blurs into dark, wavering blobs I can't name.
01Definition

Something ambiguous can honestly be read in two or more ways — and refuses to settle the question. An ambiguous reply leaves you unsure whether you were agreed with; an ambiguous law keeps courts busy for decades. The word does not mean 'vague' in the sense of empty: an ambiguous statement may be perfectly precise about each of its possible meanings. The Latin root ambigere means 'to wander around' — the meaning circles, and never lands.

02In use
  • iThe film's ending is deliberately ambiguous, and viewers stay ambivalent as the question of what happened continues to linger.
  • iiHis reply was so ambiguous that both readings of it remained equally plausible.
  • iiiA single ambiguous clause, worded to deceive, led to a two-year legal dispute.
03Collocations
  • deliberately ambiguous
  • an ambiguous answer
  • ambiguous wording
  • morally ambiguous
  • remain ambiguous

Family ambiguity (noun) · ambiguously (adverb) · unambiguous (adjective)

04Relations

=equivocal, unclear, open to interpretation, cryptic, double-edged

≠unambiguous, explicit, clear-cut

05Compared
PairThe difference
ambiguous vs ambivalentQuick test: things are ambiguous (unclear meaning); people are ambivalent (mixed feelings).
ambiguous vs lucidclear on the first reading → lucid; honestly supports two meanings → ambiguous ('LOO-sid').
06TOEFL & IELTS

A test-maker's favorite: TOEFL reading questions ask what an author's 'ambiguous' phrasing implies, and literature passages praise 'deliberate ambiguity'. In IELTS writing, calling evidence or wording ambiguous is a precise way to criticize it. Know the noun 'ambiguity' — and do not confuse it with 'ambivalent', which describes mixed feelings in a person, not unclear meaning in a thing.

07Asked
What are the two main types of ambiguity?
Lexical and syntactic. Lexical ambiguity lives in a single word: 'bank' is a riverside or a lender. Syntactic ambiguity lives in the structure: 'I saw the man with the telescope' offers no way to tell who held the instrument. Law and linguistics both spend careers on the second kind, because rewriting one clause can dissolve it.
What does 'morally ambiguous' mean?
A morally ambiguous character can be honestly read as good or bad — the con artist who keeps one promise, the officer who breaks the law to protect someone. Fiction prizes them because the reader must do the judging. The phrase keeps the word's core: two defensible readings, and the text refuses to settle the question.
What is an example of an ambiguous word?
'Biweekly' is the classic trap: dictionaries accept both 'twice a week' and 'every two weeks', so a biweekly meeting is a scheduling accident waiting to happen. 'Sanction' (permit or punish) and 'cleave' (join or split) go further and mean their own opposites. Careful writers replace all of them with unmistakable phrasing.
Does ambiguous mean vague?
No — linguists keep the two apart. Vague is underspecified: 'we'll meet sometime' carries too little information to pin down. Ambiguous offers two or more fully precise readings and no way to choose. The muddy pool in the scene above is the picture of it: each blurred shape really is something definite; the water just won't let you say which.
Where does ambiguous come from?
From Latin ambi-, 'both ways', plus agere, 'to drive': ambigere, to wander around — meaning that circles and never lands. The prefix is a small family badge: ambidextrous (both hands), ambivalent (both feelings). Whenever you meet ambi-, English is telling you two directions are in play at once.
What is the difference between ambiguous and ambivalent?
The compressed tell: ambiguous is a property of things — a message with two readings; ambivalent is a property of people — a heart pulled two ways. The full comparison, with a memory trick and both animated scenes, is on the ambiguous vs ambivalent page in the 'Compared' list above, next to lucid vs ambiguous.