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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
indistinct
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ All the police have to go on is a grainy, indistinct video clip.
▪ Even with the binoculars, I could barely make out the indistinct shapes gliding through the water.
▪ He spoke in a raspy, indistinct voice.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And who will pay the price for all these indistinct boundaries?
▪ He knew it had featured Resenence Jeopardy, but the details were indistinct.
▪ Hrun himself was already an indistinct shape amid the tightening coils.
▪ It has been three weeks since the indistinct videotape image hit television screens with the impact of, well, a whip.
▪ She murmurs, but her words are indistinct.
▪ The light through the blind was going, and his features were indistinct, his eyes lost in their deep sockets.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Indistinct

Indistinct \In`dis*tinct"\ ([i^]n`d[i^]s*t[i^][ng]kt"), a. [L. indistinctus: cf. F. indistinct. See In- not, and Distinct.]

  1. Not distinct or distinguishable; not separate in such a manner as to be perceptible by itself; as, the indistinct parts of a substance. ``Indistinct as water is in water.''
    --Shak.

  2. Obscure to the mind or senses; not clear; not definite; confused; imperfect; faint; as, indistinct vision; an indistinct sound; an indistinct idea or recollection.

    When we come to parts too small four our senses, our ideas of these little bodies become obscure and indistinct.
    --I. Watts.

    Their views, indeed, are indistinct and dim.
    --Cowper.

    Syn: Undefined; indistinguishable; obscure; indefinite; vague; ambiguous; uncertain; confused.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
indistinct

c.1400 (implied in indistinctly "equally, alike"), from Latin indistinctus "not distinct, confused," from in- "not, opposite of" (see in- (1)) + distinctus (see distinct). Related: Indistinctly; indistinctness.

Wiktionary
indistinct

a. 1 (context of an image etc English) not clearly defined or not having a sharp outline; faint or dim 2 (context of a thought idea etc English) hazy or vague 3 (context of speech English) difficult to understand

WordNet
indistinct

adj. not clearly defined or easy to perceive or understand; "indistinct shapes in the gloom"; "an indistinct memory"; "only indistinct notions of what to do" [ant: distinct]

Usage examples of "indistinct".

As it spread, the bibliophages faded and became indistinct, until they disappeared and the golden threads went with them.

They moved through red-brown mist toward an indistinct, low structure, blocklike, with a flat roof.

The champs, a chaos of people and cars, was a blur of indistinct movement, the lights and colors a smear of milky pink.

The downbound container ship was nothing more than an indistinct blur on the horizon.

My indistinct remembrance prevents my describing all the impressions it made.

Starkey gave up trying to find Leyton in the moments prior to the explosion because the clips were too short and indistinct.

The haze of an indistinct landscape swam in and out of focus with the swirl of fog.

According to Kellaart, three inconspicuous brown dorsal streaks diverging and terminating on the crupper, and some very indistinct spots seen only in some lights.

His face began to blur as if seen through an unfocussed telescope, and his hands became indistinct beside his body.

She looked, to the upcurving horizon, saw an indistinct wavefront of runners coming down that apparent wall toward them, beyond the curtaining section arch.

They often began with indistinct or partial images, but as the stimulations proceeded they became clearer, until entire episodes began to be replayed, almost as if the still photographic pictures of eidetic memory were being run through as movies.

Still she could hear the Klaxons and sirens at an indistinct distance, and she knew waking up in a strange bedroom was never good.

He wished he could see the damn thing, but it was indistinct, loglike, but glistening in the silvery starlight reflecting off the channel currents.

The boundaries between Parent, Adult, and Child are fragile, sometimes indistinct, and vulnerable to those incoming signals which tend to recreate situations we experienced in the helpless, dependent days of childhood.

I rubbed it with all my strength, but he told me in a sort of indistinct whisper that the numbness was spreading all along the left side, and that he was dying.