indefiniteness
- noun
- /ˌɪndɪˈfɪnɪtnəs/
- Her sentence was filled with indefiniteness, making it hard to understand her actual point.
Examples
-
Instead of attempting to use language and literature as unitary systems to structure reality, we must embrace reality's multiplicity and indefiniteness and construct a literature that reflects those qualities.
Academic text (1997) -
His method has been to observe how this Absolute has stimulated these others to display its capacity for indefiniteness.
Academic text (1993) -
Quinn suggests that "the indefiniteness of 'and' envelops biblical narratives in mystery."
Academic text (1997) -
How to convey the indefiniteness of the world that surrounded them, that they trusted from one moment to the next in its constancy, even its indifference?
Fiction book (1991) -
The ambiguity and semantic indefiniteness of proverbs drive their circulation (Yankah 1995: 42).
Academic text (2009) -
Apparently, anyone who has been engaged in the discourse of absence cannot help but notice the difficulty in bridging the insurmountable gap between the indefiniteness of absence on the one hand and the inadequacy of its rhetoric on the other.
Academic text (1997) -
I realize how very difficult, potentially disastrous, it is for a non-literary person, a lawyer no less, to whom it is important that words have exact meanings, whose job it is to make sure those meanings are as unambiguous as possible, to venture into the world of poetry where everything is suggestion and shadow, where indefiniteness rules.
Fiction book (1999) -
The indefiniteness of his explanation left everyone feeling confused about the topic.
-
The artist's work is characterized by an intriguing indefiniteness that invites interpretation.
Synonyms
A lack of clear meaning that allows people to understand it in different ways
Lack of clear or exact meaning that makes things hard to understand
An unclear or uncertain situation that makes meaning hard to know
The state of being vague or not clear
A situation where meaning is not clear or exact
A lack of clear or exact meaning
A state of being unclear with no definite meaning or edges
A state of being unclear and hard to understand
Information or speech that is hard to understand and causes confusion
A situation when something is hard to understand
A state where you cannot describe something exactly
Antonyms
How Vague
Surface Forms
Morphology
indefiniteness = indefinite (transparent) = in + definite + ness
This is a standard noun formation from the adjective 'indefinite' meaning the state or quality of being indefinite.
Etymology
Indefiniteness comes from the parts in- meaning 'not' and definite meaning 'clearly fixed or limited', the same idea you see in define and definition. So, indefiniteness is the state of being 'not clear' or 'without fixed limits', which is why it means vague or unclear.