indeterminately, adv.
(ɪndɪˈtɜːmɪnətlɪ)
[f. prec. + -ly2.]
In an indeterminate manner.
1. Without precision; indefinitely; vaguely.
| 1571 Golding Calvin on Ps. lviii. 12 To speake indeterminately, as it were of a multitude. 1628 T. Spencer Logick 168 This word some..doth designe an vniversall, or common terme indeterminately. 1726 Ayliffe Parergon 350 A Libel is not valid, if the Demand or Petition therein containd be deduced and set forth indeterminately. 1835 I. Taylor Spir. Despot. iv. 166 No writer of the age of Cyprian uses the words bishop, presbyter, and deacon so indeterminately or so abstractedly as do the apostles. |
† 2. Without specification or selection; indifferently. Obs.
| 1677 Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. iv. 106 Whether we subduct that Number of Ten out of the last Generations of Men, or out of Generations a thousand years since, or indeterminately out of the whole Collection [etc.]. 1704 Norris Ideal World ii. iii. 150 All knowledge must be immediate or mediate indeterminately. a 1761 Law Th. Relig. iii. ii. (R.), The worst and most dreadful part of the sentence..which denounced death absolutely and indeterminately. |
3. Without deciding or settling a question. rare.
Based on It. indeterminatamente in the title of Galileo's Dialogo (1632): the English transl. of 1661 renders it ‘impartially and indefinitely’.
| 1841 Brewster Mart. Sc. v. 81 Galileo's work..[in which] he discusses, indeterminately and firmly, the arguments proposed on both sides. |