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Glite Dictionary
to leave room for doubt

to leave room for doubt

1 6.5
Make something not completely certain or convincing
  • idiom
translation icon : dejar margen para la duda
  • When presenting the evidence, the lawyer decided to leave room for doubt about his client's guilt.

Examples

  • You have a choice between a totally unacceptable incumbent and a candidate whose position is not perfect, and whose history leaves room for doubt, but whose stated positions are infinitely better than those of the incumbent.

    Blog text (30)

  • We absolutely must leave room for doubt, or there is no progress and there is no learning.

    Blog text (20)

  • It should leave room for doubt, for growth.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Women, she implies, are barred from full citizenship not by nature itself (always the highest authority in Revolutionary rhetoric) but by those who speak in the name of nature—a construction that leaves room for doubt about the wisdom of those who make these claims.

    Academic text (2011)

  • The report was detailed, but it still leaves room for doubt regarding the final conclusions.

  • The scientist's hypothesis was interesting, yet it left room for doubt about its validity.

Synonyms

to cast doubt
vsto leave room for doubt
17 4.6

Make people feel unsure if something is true

allows a possibility that something may be untrue by not fully convincing

How Certain

positutely sure
  • Informal
9.8
convinced
466 2.8
to leave room for doubt
1 6.5
to doubt
∞ 1.3

Surface Forms

leave room for doubt infinitive
leaving room for doubt present participle
leaves room for doubt third person singular
left room for doubt past
left room for doubt past participle

Morphology

leave + room + for + doubt

The meaning is directly compositional: 'leave' = allow/leave, 'room' = space, 'for' = for, and 'doubt' = uncertainty, so a learner can infer 'allow space for uncertainty'. This uses a common spatial-for-abstract metaphor found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the words will likely understand it.

Etymology

The phrase leave room for doubt comes from a simple picture: to leave a bit of room is to keep a small empty space where something can still be hidden or unclear. That's why the phrase means 'to allow for the possibility that something may not be true'.