How to Use ambiguous in a Sentence

ambiguous

adjective
  • We were confused by the ambiguous wording of the message.
  • He looked at her with an ambiguous smile.
  • Due to the ambiguous nature of the question, it was difficult to choose the right answer.
  • The book's ending is much more ambiguous than the film's.
    Juliana Ukiomogbe, ELLE, 1 Jan. 2023
  • But the Court’s change is more ambiguous than first seems.
    Aziz Huq, Time, 6 July 2023
  • Some of the phrases are very clear, but a lot of them are kind of ambiguous.
    Leah Ollman, Los Angeles Times, 2 Dec. 2022
  • The one thing where guidelines are a bit ambiguous is use of a face mask.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 26 Aug. 2020
  • The secret is to make ambiguous statements about a wide range of events, and some of them will stick.
    Mike O'Sullivan, Forbes, 11 June 2022
  • This isn’t a week to leave your hunger drifting and ambiguous.
    Claire Comstock-Gay, The Cut, 19 Mar. 2018
  • Quan's background in the film, on the other hand, is left ambiguous.
    Patrick Cooley, cleveland.com, 13 Oct. 2017
  • But the agencies have been ambiguous about their plans.
    New York Times, 31 Mar. 2020
  • The stagflation of the past, so obvious to us now, was ambiguous then.
    Jason Zweig, WSJ, 2 Sep. 2022
  • This is the nature of ambiguous laws in one-party states.
    Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 29 Dec. 2020
  • Perrin, on the other hand, is a lot more ambiguous to me.
    Andrew Cunningham & Lee Hutchinson, Ars Technica, 24 Dec. 2021
  • So the whole thing was ambiguous by design, but no, there was nothing reshot of that.
    Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Oct. 2022
  • The ending of the film is far more ambiguous than the novel’s conclusion.
    Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 18 Mar. 2022
  • Ozier has found the paper trail that might prove the latter to be ambiguous, at best.
    Rosalind Bentley, ajc, 24 Aug. 2021
  • Even then, the reference is ambiguous and implies the law might no longer be in place.
    Bloomberg.com, 16 Apr. 2018
  • The forecast for the rest of the winter remains somewhat ambiguous.
    Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 10 Feb. 2024
  • But with the rise of cable news, campaign cash has played a smaller and even more ambiguous role.
    Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 22 Nov. 2019
  • Without it, your thoughts are ambiguous, and your mind flits from one thing to the next and drifts aimlessly.
    Kumar Mehta, Forbes, 21 June 2022
  • So the value of the ranking enterprise to those who use them is ambiguous at best.
    Abba Krieger, Quartz, 8 Dec. 2020
  • Truth be told, humans run aground on ambiguous language all the time.
    Ben Zimmer, The Atlantic, 27 June 2018
  • Perhaps as a result, the statute’s language can be ambiguous to the point of vagueness.
    New York Times, 10 Dec. 2021
  • Something that was so ambiguous then is very clear now.
    Julie Mazziotta, PEOPLE.com, 1 Aug. 2019
  • Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense.
    Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Fox News, 17 July 2017
  • The legal reasons used to block web sites and content has been ambiguous, Amnesty says.
    Naira Oberoi, CNN, 13 Dec. 2017
  • Near her waist, the man’s hand is held up in a seemingly ambiguous gesture.
    Samuel Reilly, 1843, 3 July 2019
  • What draws you to stories about identity and the ambiguous nature of it?
    Los Angeles Times, 11 Nov. 2021
  • Doesn’t art have to risk more sentiment and a less ambiguous ending to make its point, or would that be too trite?
    Mick Lasalle, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Mar. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ambiguous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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