ambiguityam‧bi‧gu‧i‧ty /ˌæmbɪˈɡjuːəti/ ●○○ AWL noun (plural ambiguities) [countable, uncountable] 
- Bottom-up parsers are very susceptible to problems arising from lexical ambiguity.
- But they recognised the ambiguities, and based their paper on wider evidence, and were prompted by concern for conservation.
- Grinding the coffee beans he pondered life's smaller ambiguities.
- The design of policy has to take into account the ambiguity of the welfare analysis outlined in the previous section.
- This description owes its quaint sound partly to its antiquity, and partly to ambiguity.
- Thus, a trace of ambiguity in the data can lower success rate.
ADJECTIVE► lexical· Bottom-up parsers are very susceptible to problems arising from lexical ambiguity.· Context, mediated by anaphora, can affect the resolution of lexical as well as structural ambiguity.· In Chapters 5 and 6 the Chart is allowed to run to completion in order to determine the worst-case effects of lexical ambiguity.
► syntactic· Using the simple tagset of the current system the degree of syntactic ambiguity found is shown in table 4.4.· Despite these modifications, syntactic ambiguity remains a large problem for generative systems.· There are ways to reduce the problems posed by syntactic ambiguity.· A similar technique is used to resolve anaphoric references and similar syntactic ambiguities.· Many of the words in the lexicon have a high degree of syntactic ambiguity.· The resolution of syntactic ambiguity is one of the tasks to be performed by semantic analysis.
VERB► avoid· We have no need formally to be told to avoid ambiguities.· Some statistical data is always included and, again, care is needed to avoid any ambiguity.· Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity.· To avoid ambiguity it is good practice to complete the comments section even if the current version is required.
► create· What I like is combining something strict with something free - it creates ambiguity and I love ambiguity.· These two effects, output creation and output diversion, create an ambiguity about the welfare effects of trade.· These shifts are creating enormous ambiguity for those already in the workforce as well as those about to enter the business community.· Their very flexibility creates an uncomfortable ambiguity for those who are part of them.
► reduce· The plan itself does serve as a binding mechanism to reduce ambiguity, but not too much should be expected of it.· The aim is to reduce the pattern level ambiguity until only allowable words remain.· The following chapters expand on the practical application of reducing the ambiguity produced from a pattern recogniser.· The output from a character recogniser requires further processing to reduce the ambiguity and hence increase the accuracy of recognition.
► resolve· The Frandon matter has been one of some embarrassment and I am glad it has been resolved, though the ambiguity remains.· The final stage was to resolve the ambiguity, by formulating and asking appropriate questions in order to secure the missing information.· It is likely that in normal discourse, the context of the sentences will help to resolve these potential ambiguities.· Thus it is for the trader to resolve ambiguities in his price indications.· It requires motivation towards making new connections as a way of resolving existing ambiguity.
nounambiguityadjectiveambiguous ≠ unambiguousadverbambiguously ≠ unambiguously
There was an element of ambiguity in the president’s reply.