ambiguous
- 1Able to be understood or interpreted in more than one way.
The contract's ambiguous wording led to a long dispute over who owed what.
Her reply was deliberately ambiguous, leaving us unsure whether she would come to the wedding.
Similarunclear, vague, uncertain, equivocal, indefinite
Oppositeclear, unambiguous
Note
The word pictures a meaning that will not hold still: Latin ambiguus, "moving from side to side", from ambi- "on both sides" and agere "to drive". Merely unclear wording is hard to read at all; ambiguous wording can be read two or more ways, each of them plausible. Equivocal is its close partner, and unambiguous is the precise opposite.
- 2Of a person, hesitant and uncertain, taking neither side of a question.
Note
Here the doubt sits in the person rather than in the words. In Thomas Salusbury's Mathematical collections and translations (1662) a speaker calls himself ambiguous on a question while Simplicius is resolute: wavering, not unclear. The use is obsolete, and a modern reader will hear the "open to interpretation" meaning, so write hesitant or undecided instead.
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Origin
From Latin ambiguus ("moving from side to side, of doubtful nature"), from ambigere ("to go about, wander, doubt"), which combines ambi- ("around, about, on both sides") with agere ("to drive, move").