Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Not clear in meaning or expression; inexplicit. synonym: ambiguous.
- adjective Not thinking or expressing oneself clearly.
- adjective Lacking definite shape, form, or character; indistinct.
- adjective Indistinctly felt, perceived, understood, or recalled; hazy.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To wander; rove; roam; play the vagrant.
- Wandering; roving; vagrant.
- Uncertain as to characters and specific designation, yet limited in scope and application; restricted in logical breadth, without any corresponding fullness of logical depth; said to be determinate, but without precise expression of the determination.
- Proceeding from no known authority; of uncertain origin or derivation: as, a vague report.
- Having unclear perception or thought; not thinking clearly.
- noun A wandering; a journey; a voyage.
- noun A vagary; a whim.
- noun An undefined expanse: indefinite space.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Archaic Wandering; vagrant; vagabond.
- adjective Unsettled; unfixed; undetermined; indefinite; ambiguous.
- adjective Proceeding from no known authority; unauthenticated; uncertain; flying.
- adjective See Sothiac year, under
Sothiac . - noun rare An indefinite expanse.
- intransitive verb obsolete To wander; to roam; to stray.
- noun obsolete A wandering; a vagary.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective not clearly expressed; stated in
indefinite terms. - adjective not having a precise meaning.
- adjective not clearly defined, grasped, or understood;
indistinct ;slight . - adjective not clearly felt or sensed; somewhat
subconscious . - adjective not thinking or expressing one’s thoughts clearly or precisely.
- adjective lacking expression;
vacant . - adjective not sharply outlined;
hazy . - noun obsolete A
wandering ; avagary .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective lacking clarity or distinctness
- adjective not clearly understood or expressed
- adjective not precisely limited, determined, or distinguished
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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These _vague_ articles, intended for a more vague performance, are the things which have damned our reputation in India.
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763
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"Curious!" echoed Rebecca, finding the term vague even while suggestive.
Lodusky 1995
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Weber himself is at least partly to blame for this problem, for he frequently left the term vague, in spite of many attempts to clarify himself.
Charisma and History: The Case of Münster, Westphalia, 1534-1535. Tal Howard Tal Howard 1993
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"Curious!" echoed Rebecca, finding the term vague even while suggestive.
Lodusky Frances Hodgson Burnett 1886
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An initial draft of the resolution, prepared by France and Britain, had language, I was told, that called for the exercise of "vigilance" involving arms transfers to Syria - a word vague enough for the Russians to have agreed to it last year in the latest round of U.N. sanctions against Iran.
NYT > Home Page By JOHN VINOCUR 2011
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An initial draft of the resolution, prepared by France and Britain, had language, I was told, that called for the exercise of "vigilance" involving arms transfers to Syria - a word vague enough for the Russians to have agreed to it last year in the latest round of U.N. sanctions against Iran.
NYT > Home Page By JOHN VINOCUR 2011
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I have used the English word vague as an equivalent of that word in Japanese aimaina.
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Scottish business school student Steven Renwick used to harbor what he called a "vague aspiration" to get his MBA from an American institution such as the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Now, Booth hopes to pick another court fight to clarify what he calls a "vague" situation that has left pastors uncertain about what they can and can't say from the pulpit.
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Yet despite this well-known pattern of exploitation, the company announced in January that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had awarded it a 5-year $385 million contract to build immigrant "detention facilities" (prisons) for immigrants arrested on charges of entering the country illegally and to provide construction and logistics support services in the event of an "immigration emergency," a term vague enough to cause activists to suspect the worst -- that they are openly planning to build detention camps for political dissidents.
Charlie Cray: Prison Camps: BushCo's Big Growth Industry? 2008
madmouth commented on the word vague
about 'scatty' old Anthea Bradbury-Scott:
"She's vague, you know...very vague indeed"
-Agatha Christie's Nemesis
June 18, 2009