Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Uncertainty.
  • noun Absence of confidence; doubt.
  • noun Insecurity or instability.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or condition of being uncertain; doubtfulness; uncertainty arising from doubt or hesitation.
  • noun Obscurity; indefiniteness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Uncertainty; doubtfulness; doubt.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncertainty, doubt, insecurity

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the state of being unsure of something

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French.

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Examples

  • After so many months of incertitude, this comes as a huge relief to him.

    Alberto Contador cautiously optimistic he can avoid appeal 2011

  • And romantic it certainly was — the fog, like the grey shadow of infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the Unseen, and clamouring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude and fear.

    Chapter 1 2010

  • Wales - a country with incertitude carved into its genes - is beginning to find its confidence.

    Archive 2008-09-01 2008

  • That incertitude and the resulting decision of other insurers to drop their child-only plans, according to WellPoint spokeswoman Kristin Binns, "has created an unlevel competitive environment."

    Major health insurers to stop offering new child-only policies 2010

  • Wales - a country with incertitude carved into its genes - is beginning to find its confidence.

    New Wales 2008

  • Curiously it could be said to be making a come back in post-modernist painters such as Tuysman & Richter, where it 'hovers' in anxiety & incertitude rather than the inevitability of the 'penny dropping'.

    Stillness and Action, Part 2 James Gurney 2009

  • The Global Wars and the major historical events have brought a new wave of incertitude regarding the form and direction of their polity.

    Is Global Democracy Possible? -The Contemporary Crisis of Democracy 2008

  • This is when the teller asked if the suspect was "serious," expressing her crime-fighting incertitude.

    Bank Teller averts robbery, asking "Are you serious?" 2008

  • Even Paulson says that this enormous bail out may not cure the problem, so we will be left in the same position of incertitude and fear we are today, but we would have spent nearly a trillion dollars.

    Congress to the rescue! (Maybe) 2008

  • Yet he saw consequences the most unpleasant in this rumour of her attachment; and though he still privately hoped that the behaviour of Mandlebert was the effect of some transient embarrassment, he wished her removed from all intercourse with him that was not sought by himself, while the incertitude of his intentions militated against her struggles for indifference.

    Camilla 2008

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