noun

• 1Lack of certainty or distinctness.

  ‘Sue worries about the vagueness of the plans’

  More example sentences

  • ‘their vision for reform has been shrouded in vagueness’
  • ‘The Dickenses were to move house twice during the first two years of Charles's life, and the novelist later recalled Portsmouth with considerable vagueness.’
  • ‘There were many good memories, but I have a lot of vagueness over the years.’
  • ‘More important than her posture of self-martyring altruism was the vagueness of her masochistic grandiosity.’
  • ‘The vagueness of the crimes and ties between the characters only adds to the baffling nature of the plot.’
  • ‘It was all vagueness, in a hazy holiday benevolence.’

  Synonyms

  impreciseness, inexactness, lack of precision, ambiguity, woolliness, looseness, unclearness, obscurity, indistinctness, generality, indefiniteness, indeterminateness, haziness, cloudiness, fuzziness, mistiness, lack of definition

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1Lack of preciseness in thought or communication.
     ‘the vagueness of terms does nothing to aid understanding’
     More example sentences

     • ‘there is a certain vagueness in his account that I find troubling’
     • ‘His reform strategies tend to be weakened either by vagueness or internal contradiction.’
     • ‘Whilst facilitating the adoption of this model by employers, legislative vagueness about the issue subverts the effectiveness of union resistance.’
     • ‘The 'story', if it can be called that, opens in mystery and proceeds through ambiguity, equivocation, and vagueness.’
     • ‘The vagueness is what keeps us engaged until the surprise ending.’
     • ‘Her extensive understanding of war's horror contrasts with the ridiculous vagueness of her father's telegram announcing Victor's wounding.’
     Synonyms

     absent-mindedness, forgetfulness, disorganization, dreaminess, inattention, abstraction, wool-gathering, empty-headedness, giddiness, confusion, befuddlement

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