Vague

How to spell vague

5 letters · 1 syllable

1 of the 20 people asked to spell vague in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

How to pronounce vague

What does vague mean?

1. adjectiveNot clearly or precisely expressed, understood, or perceived; indistinct.

Vague in a sentence

• The instructions were too vague for the team to follow.

• She gave only a vague answer about her plans for the weekend.

Where does vague come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin vagus, meaning 'wandering', 'roaming', or 'unfixed', which described something that strays rather than stays in one place. From the literal idea of physical wandering, the sense drifted toward thoughts and language that wander without a clear destination, that is, things that are indistinct or imprecise. English borrowed it in the 1500s through the French vague, which carried the same blurred, unsettled meaning. The same Latin root gave us 'vagrant', a person who wanders, and 'vagary', a wandering whim, so the family all shares the idea of straying off a fixed path. The trap in the spelling is the silent 'ue' tail: the word ends with a hard 'g' sound but keeps the French-style 'gue' cluster, just like 'plague' and 'fatigue'.

How the word is built

• vagu- (from Latin vagus: wandering, unfixed)
• -e (silent French/Latin ending)