Ambiguous



Look to the adjective ambiguous when you need to describe something that's open to more than one interpretation, like the headline "Squad helps dog bite victim."

Newspaper headlines can be unintentionally funny when they're ambiguous. In "Squad helps dog bite victim," is the squad helping a victim of a dog bite or helping a dog bite a victim? The ambi- prefix means "both ways," while the guous part is from the Latin verb agere, "to lead or drive." Thus an ambiguous sentence or situation drives us in two different directions at once. The accent is on the second syllable, "big," which you can remember since something that's ambiguous can lead to big misunderstandings.

Synonyms

1. puzzling uncertain vague

Antonyms

1. certain clear determined obvious plain sure