uncertainty

uncertainty

n.

1. The mental state of being uncertain

   perplexity, doubt, dubiety, dubiosity, skepticism, puzzlement, quandary, mystification, guesswork, conjecture, indecision, ambivalence, dilemma.

   Antonyms opinion*, belief*, decision. *

2. The state of being undetermined or unknown

   incertitude, questionableness, contingency, obscurity, vagueness, ambiguity, equivocalness, doubt, difficulty, incoherence, intricacy, darkness, inconclusiveness, indeterminateness, improbability, unlikelihood, low probability, conjecturability; see also doubt 2.

   Antonyms determination*, sureness, necessity. *

3. That which is not determined or not known

   chance, mutability, change, unpredictability, possibility, emergence, contingency, blind spot, puzzle, enigma, question, blank, vacancy, maze, theory, risk, blind bargain, leap in the dark*.

   Antonyms fact*, truth*, matter of record.

uncertainty ranges in implication from a mere lack of absolute sureness uncertainty about a date of birth to such vagueness as to preclude anything more than guesswork the uncertainty of the future; doubt implies such a lack of conviction, as through absence of sufficient evidence, that there can be no certain opinion or decision there is doubt about his guilt; dubiety suggests uncertainty characterized by wavering between conclusions; dubiosity connotes uncertainty characterized by vagueness or confusion; skepticism implies an unwillingness to believe, often a habitual disposition to doubt, in the absence of absolute certainty or proof