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INDEFINITE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Not decided or not known
Example:
plans are indefinite
Classified under:
Similar:
uncertain (not established beyond doubt; still undecided or unknown)
Derivation:
indefiniteness (the quality of being vague and poorly defined)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Vague or not clearly defined or stated
Example:
he would not answer so indefinite a proposal
Classified under:
Similar:
coy (showing marked and often playful or irritating evasiveness or reluctance to make a definite or committing statement)
indecisive (not clearly defined)
nebulous; unfixed (lacking definition or definite content)
noncommittal (refusing to bind oneself to a particular course of action or view or the like)
one (indefinite in time or position)
Also:
unclear (not clear to the mind)
undefined; vague (not precisely limited, determined, or distinguished)
indistinct (not clearly defined or easy to perceive or understand)
Antonym:
definite (precise; explicit and clearly defined)
Derivation:
indefiniteness; indefinity (the quality of being vague and poorly defined)
Context examples:
His stay became indefinite.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Do you imagine it to be the consequence of an immediate commission from him, or that he may have sent only a general direction, an order indefinite as to time, to depend upon contingencies and conveniences?
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
He seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the strange feeling (to which, perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred before, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to say next, took possession of me.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She was happy whenever she looked at William, and saw how perfectly he was enjoying himself, in every five minutes that she could walk about with him and hear his account of his partners; she was happy in knowing herself admired; and she was happy in having the two dances with Edmund still to look forward to, during the greatest part of the evening, her hand being so eagerly sought after that her indefinite engagement with him was in continual perspective.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
A pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing-room blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, who rouged and powdered in an invisible glass.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
I began to walk about the room, examining various indefinite objects in the half darkness. A large photograph of an elderly man in yachting costume attracted me, hung on the wall over his desk.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
