nebulous
adjective
Josef WoodardW. R. LaFave & J. H. Israel
Did you know?
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.”
Examples of nebulous in a Sentence
Matthew Buzzi, PCMAG, 2 Mar. 2025
Or, attorneys may be loosely affiliated with a particular group, but the group is not organized as a law firm and any attorney's association with the group is at best nebulous.
—Jay Adkisson, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2025
The ideas around Kidder seem nebulous at this point — what is her agenda?
—Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 20 Feb. 2025
One of his other child costars was a little more nebulous — the mouse brother Stuart Little.
—Victoria Edel, People.com, 4 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for nebulous
Cite this Entry
“Nebulous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nebulous. Accessed 14 Mar. 2025.
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nebulous
adjective
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