Ambiguity

How to spell ambiguity

9 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce ambiguity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ambiguity mean?

1. nounThe quality of being open to more than one interpretation, so that the intended meaning is unclear.

Ambiguity in a sentence

• The lawyer rewrote the clause to remove any ambiguity about who owned the property.

• The ambiguity in the instructions left half the team building the wrong version.

Where does ambiguity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb ambigere, which meant to wander about or to dispute, and which was formed from ambi- meaning 'both ways' and agere meaning 'to drive' or 'to lead'. The literal image was of a mind being driven in two directions at once, unable to settle on a single path. From that verb Latin built the adjective ambiguus, 'doubtful' or 'uncertain', and the noun ambiguitas for the quality of being open to more than one reading. English took the word in through Old French and Latin during the 1400s, keeping its sense of a statement or situation that can be understood in more than one way. The same ambi- 'both' element survives in everyday relatives such as ambidextrous and ambivalent, and the agere root is the reason the spelling carries a 'gu' where many writers expect a simple 'g'.

How the word is built

• ambi- (both ways)
• -ig- (from agere: to drive, to go)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)