nebulous
adjective
Josef WoodardW. R. LaFave & J. H. Israel
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Nebulous may sound other-worldly—after all, it’s related to nebula, which refers to a distant galaxy or an interstellar cloud of gas or dust—but its mysteriousness is rooted in more earthly unknowns. Both words ultimately come from Latin nebula, meaning “mist, cloud,” and as far back as the 14th century nebulous could mean simply “cloudy” or “foggy.” Nebulous has since the late 17th century been the adjective correlating to nebula (as in “nebulous gas”), but the word is more familiar in its figurative use, where it describes things that are indistinct or vague, as when Jack London wrote of “ideas that were nebulous at best and that in reality were remembered sensations.”
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Examples of nebulous in a Sentence
Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 23 Apr. 2024
Out of hubris or audacity, Gandhi wants to persuade people to consider lofty things like morality and love, indispensable values that nonetheless make for nebulous campaign platforms.
—Samanth Subramanian Vikas Adam Tanya Pérez Zachary Mouton, New York Times, 20 Apr. 2024
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nebulous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Nebulous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nebulous. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.
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nebulous
adjective
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