Crossword clues for equivocal
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Equivocal \E*quiv"o*cal\, a. [L. aequivocus: aequus equal + vox, vocis, word. See Equal, and Voice, and cf. Equivoque.]
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(Literally, called equally one thing or the other; hence:) Having two significations equally applicable; capable of double interpretation; of doubtful meaning; ambiguous; uncertain; as, equivocal words; an equivocal sentence.
For the beauties of Shakespeare are not of so dim or equivocal a nature as to be visible only to learned eyes.
--Jeffrey. Capable of being ascribed to different motives, or of signifying opposite feelings, purposes, or characters; deserving to be suspected; as, his actions are equivocal. ``Equivocal repentances.''
--Milton.-
Uncertain, as an indication or sign; doubtful. ``How equivocal a test.''
--Burke.Equivocal chord (Mus.), a chord which can be resolved into several distinct keys; one whose intervals, being all minor thirds, do not clearly indicate its fundamental tone or root; the chord of the diminished triad, and the diminished seventh.
Syn: Ambiguous; doubtful; uncertain; indeterminate.
Usage: Equivocal, Ambiguous. We call an expression ambiguous when it has one general meaning, and yet contains certain words which may be taken in two different senses; or certain clauses which can be so connected with other clauses as to divide the mind between different views of part of the meaning intended. We call an expression equivocal when, taken as a whole, it conveys a given thought with perfect clearness and propriety, and also another thought with equal propriety and clearness. Such were the responses often given by the Delphic oracle; as that to Cr[oe]sus when consulting about a war with Persia: ``If you cross the Halys, you will destroy a great empire.'' This he applied to the Persian empire, which lay beyond that river, and, having crossed, destroyed his own empire in the conflict. What is ambiguous is a mere blunder of language; what is equivocal is usually intended to deceive, though it may occur at times from mere inadvertence. Equivocation is applied only to cases where there is a design to deceive.
Equivocal \E*quiv"o*cal\, n. A word or expression capable of different meanings; an ambiguous term; an equivoque.
In languages of great ductility, equivocals like that
just referred to are rarely found.
--Fitzed.
Hall.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1600, from Late Latin aequivocus "of equal voice, of equal significance, ambiguous" (see equivocation) + -al (1). Earlier in same sense was equivoque (late 14c.). Related: Equivocally (1570s).
Wiktionary
a. 1 Having two or more equally applicable meanings; capable of double or multiple interpretation; ambiguous; uncertain. 2 Capable of being ascribed to different motives, or of signifying opposite feelings, purposes, or characters; deserving to be suspected. 3 Uncertain, as an indication or sign; doubtful, incongruous. n. A word or expression capable of different meanings; an ambiguous term; an equivoque.
WordNet
adj. open to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or (often) intended to mislead; "an equivocal statement"; "the polling had a complex and equivocal (or ambiguous) message for potential female candidates"; "the officer's equivocal behavior increased the victim's uneasiness"; "popularity is an equivocal crown"; "an equivocal response to an embarrassing question" [syn: ambiguous] [ant: unequivocal]
open to question; "aliens of equivocal loyalty"; "his conscience reproached him with the equivocal character of the union into which he had forced his son"-Anna Jameson
uncertain as a sign or indication; "the evidence from bacteriologic analysis was equivocal"
Usage examples of "equivocal".
Yes or no, did I yield to the paroxysm of choler which possessed me on hearing of the engagement of Ardea and on finding that I was in the presence of that equivocal Hafner?
But in matter of fact we have come here with a proposal, which, rightly understood, is nearly equivocal to the Middelburg proposal, and which meets the wishes of the English Government as far as possible.
I loved of old to see square-headed, heavy-jawed Spurzheim make a brain flower out into a corolla of marrowy filaments, as Vieussens had done before him, and to hear the dry-fibred but human-hearted George Combe teach good sense under the disguise of his equivocal system.
I told him to be silent, and not to speak French till he was able to express himself in that equivocal language without making a fool of himself.
This was also an equivocal case, apparently arising from constipation and irritation of the rectum.
Here is a single sheet, dated 'this 2nd September, 1791,' and headed Souvenir: The Prince de Rosenberg said to me, as we went down stairs, that Madame de Rosenberg was dead, and asked me if the Comte de Waldstein had in the library the illustration of the Villa d'Altichiero, which the Emperor had asked for in vain at the city library of Prague, and when I answered 'yes,' he gave an equivocal laugh.
It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon th possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries might have exercised upon the other -- it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the ’.
And if conclusive proof be difficult to be obtained, shall we therefore fasten irremovably upon equivocal proof?
The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible World is but a Picture of the invisible, wherein, as in a Pourtraict, things are not truely, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some more real substance in that invisible fabrick.
At the time, serious thought was given to prosecuting her, but the ruling class was equivocal about treason.