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
Toni Pisano, Forbes.com, 7 Apr. 2025
With only that nebulous countdown to rely on and sustained financing up in the air, the fledgling hypersonic sector certainly can’t afford to, well, cool its jets.
—Michael Verdon, Robb Report, 22 Mar. 2025
For them, the cloud isn’t nebulous but a physical system that must be built, paid for, and maintained.
—Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2025
Although many galaxies have nebulous regions within them — gas, dust, and even ionized material — most galaxies, overall, only appear to be nebula-like in nature.
—Big Think, 18 Mar. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Nebulous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nebulous. Accessed 21 Apr. 2025.
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nebulous
adjective
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