IV. WORDS RELATING TO THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES; FORMATION OF IDEAS

Ill. MATERIALS FOR REASONING

Degrees of Evidence

Uncertainty.

[Antonyms: certainty.]

[Nouns] uncertainty, incertitude, doubt; doubtfulness; dubiety, dubitation, dubitancy, dubitousness.

hesitation, suspense; perplexity, embarrassment, dilemma, bewilderment; timidity (fear) [more]; vacillation [more]; diaporesis, indetermination.

vagueness; haze, fog; obscurity (darkness) [more]; ambiguity (double meaning) [more]; contingency, double contingency, possibility upon a possibility; open question (question) [more]; onus probandi; blind bargain, pig in a poke, leap in the dark, something or other; needle in a haystack, needle in a bottle of hay; roving commission.

precariousness; fallibility.

[Verbs] be uncertain; wonder whether.

lose the clue, lose the clew, scent; miss one's way.

not know what to make of (unintelligibility) [more], not know which way to turn, not know whether one stands on one�s head or one's heels; float in a sea of doubt, hesitate, flounder; lose oneself, lose one's head; muddle one's brains.

render uncertain; put out, pose, puzzle, perplex, embarrass; confuse, confound; bewilder, bother, molder, addle the wits, throw off the scent, ambiguas in vulgus spargere voces; keep in suspense.

doubt (disbelieve) [more]; hang in the balance, tremble in the balance; depend.

[Adjectives] uncertain; casual; random (aimless) [more]; changeable [more].

doubtful, dubious; indecisive; unsettled, undecided, undetermined; in suspense, open to discussion; controvertible; in question (inquiry) [more].

vague; indeterminate, indefinite; ambiguous, equivocal; undefined, undefinable; confused (indistinct) [more]; mystic, oracular; dazed.

perplexing; enigmatic, paradoxical, apocryphal, problematical, hypothetical; experimental [more].

fallible, questionable, precarious, slippery, ticklish, debatable, disputable; unreliable, untrustworthy.

contingent, contingent on, dependent on; subject to; dependent on circumstanees; occasional; provisional.

unauthentic, unauthenticated, unauthoritative; unascertained, unconfirmed; undemonstrated; untold, uncounted.

in a state of uncertainty, in a cloud, in a maze; bushed, off the track; ignorant [more]; afraid to say; out of one's reckoning, astray, adrift; at sea, at fault, at a loss, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus; puzzled; lost, abroad, d�sorient�; distracted, distraught.

[Adverbs] pendente lite; sub spe rati.

[Phrases] Heaven knows; who can tell? who shall decide when doctors disagree? ambiguas in vulgum spargere voces.