amphiboly
(æmˈfɪbəlɪ)
Also 6–7 -ie.
[a. OFr. amphibolie, ad. L. amphibolia, a. Gr. ἀµϕιβολία ambiguity. See amphibole.]
1. Ambiguous discourse; a sentence which may be construed in two distinct senses; a quibble. (See amphibology, which is the earlier and more popular word.)
| 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 307 What a crafty Amphibolie or æquivocation. 1632 B. Jonson Magn. Lady ii. i, Come, leave your schemes, And fine amphibolies, parson. 1682 W. Evats Grotius, War & Peace 199 If a sentence will admit of a double sence, they term it an Amphiboly. 1803 Edin. Rev. I. 271 The amphibolies..etc. of which Kant speaks, are impossible. |
2. A figure of speech: Ambiguity arising from the uncertain construction of a sentence or clause, of which the individual words are unequivocal: thus distinguished by logicians from equivocation, though in popular use the two are confused.
| 1588 Fraunce Lawiers Log. i. iv. 27 b, Amphiboly, when the sentence may bee turned both the wayes, so that a man shall be uncertayne what waye to take. 1660 Stanley Hist. Philos. (1701) 247/1 Sophisms in the Word are six..2. By Amphibolie. 1681 Hobbes Rhet. 162 Now of those fallacies that are joyned together. It is either Amphibolia or the doubtfulness of speech: or etc. 1803 Edin. Rev. I. 262 The perplexing controversies on the divisibility of matter, are the product of a double amphiboly. |