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UNCERTAINTY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Being unsettled or in doubt or dependent on chance
Example:
the precariousness of his income
Synonyms:
precariousness; uncertainness; uncertainty
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("uncertainty" is a kind of...):
quality (an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "uncertainty"):
doubt; doubtfulness; dubiousness; question (uncertainty about the truth or factuality or existence of something)
indefiniteness; indefinity; indeterminacy; indeterminateness; indetermination (the quality of being vague and poorly defined)
unpredictability (lacking predictability)
improbability; improbableness (the quality of being improbable)
fortuitousness (the quality of happening accidentally and by lucky chance)
speculativeness (the quality of being a conclusion or opinion based on supposition and conjecture rather than on fact or investigation)
Antonym:
certainty (something that is certain)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The state of being unsure of something
Synonyms:
doubt; doubtfulness; dubiety; dubiousness; incertitude; uncertainty
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("uncertainty" is a kind of...):
cognitive state; state of mind (the state of a person's cognitive processes)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "uncertainty"):
arriere pensee; mental reservation; reservation (an unstated doubt that prevents you from accepting something wholeheartedly)
distrust; misgiving; mistrust; suspicion (doubt about someone's honesty)
disbelief; incredulity; mental rejection; skepticism (doubt about the truth of something)
indecision; indecisiveness; irresolution (doubt concerning two or more possible alternatives or courses of action)
peradventure (doubt or uncertainty as to whether something is the case)
suspense (an uncertain cognitive state)
Antonym:
certainty (the state of being certain)
Context examples:
But for people with anxiety disorders, fear and uncertainty interfere with everyday activities.
(Anxiety molecules affect male and female mice differently, NIH)
In all, the study found an overall ice discharge for the Antarctic continent of 1,929 gigatons per year in 2015, with an uncertainty of plus or minus 40 gigatons.
(New Study Brings Antarctic Ice Loss Into Sharper Focus, NASA)
Frustration and economic uncertainty related to the start of the worldwide crisis may have had unexpected results.
(Is the Global Crisis Triggering Basic Instincts?, BOGDAN FLORIN PAUL)
The infrared/gamma-ray connection led the authors to search for new blazar candidates among WISE infrared sources located within the positional uncertainties of Fermi's unidentified gamma-ray objects.
(WISE, Fermi Missions Reveal a Surprising Blazar Connection, NASA)
The question of how much extra carbon dioxide trees can take up, given limitations of these other nutrients, is a critical uncertainty in predicting global warming.
(Study Suggests Trees' Potential to Slow Global Warming in Next 100 Years, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
The weather was at present favourable, and at this time of year the uncertainty was very great of its continuing so.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
If your close romantic partner was not the focus of your uncertainty, you might have been thinking about whether to stay with your business partner or collaborator, because leaving has become a consideration more than once.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
After decades of uncertainty about how to manage blood sugar in acute stroke patients we finally have strong clinical evidence that aggressive lowering does not improve patient outcome, said Walter Koroshetz, M.D., National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) director.
(Researchers get a handle on how to control blood sugar after stroke, National Institutes of Health)
The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match, which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true!
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Once, very early in my career, it had totally failed me; since then I had been obliged on more than one occasion to double, and once, with infinite risk of death, to treble the amount; and these rare uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole shadow on my contentment.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
