vaguery

English

WOTD – 19 March 2012

Etymology

vague +‎ -ery, perhaps influenced by vagary. Attested since at least the 1800s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈveɪɡəɹi/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Homophone: vagary

Noun

vaguery (countable and uncountable, plural vagueries)

1. (uncountable) Vagueness, the condition of being vague.
   • 1859, New Exegesis of Shakespeare, pages 245–246:

     […] this badge of rivalry and intrusion, and of the vaguery and vacillation which restrain them through dread of danger.

   • 1977 (first publication; republication in 2003), Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain: crisis and neo-nationalism - Page 68:

     As a matter of fact, the particular breadth and vaguery of residual all-British consciousness decays more readily into racialism than into a defined, territorially restricted nationalism.

   • 1985, Stephen Chan, The Commonwealth Observer Group in Zimbabwe: a personal memoir, page 11:

     The wording of diplomatic agreements and protocols is often deliberately designed either to soothe ruffled feathers — while pursuing an otherwise ruthless course — or to give assurance in sufficiently vague form that the vaguery might afterwards be exploited to diminish the effect of the assurances.

   • 1988, Kenneth Pickering, How to Study Modern Drama:

     There is a sharp and effective contrast between the incisiveness and energy of his speech and the vaguery and haziness he is attacking.

   • 2003, Annette Fierro, The Glass State: the technology of the spectacle, Paris, 1981-1998, page 103:

     Incumbent on the quest for vaguery are frustration and unrequited desire; complete accessibility is inherently denied as part of its most basic definition.

2. (countable) A vagueness, a thing which is vague, an example of vagueness.
3. (countable, in the plural) Misspelling of vagary.
   • 1980, Nicholas P. Cushner, Lords of the Land: sugar, wine, and Jesuit estates of coastal Peru, 1600-1767, page 14:

     Some were indeed powerful men belonging to powerful families, exercising authority and influence, but the vagueries of colonial economic conditions made their holdings precarious.

   • 1983, Marvin Davis, Rank and Rivalry: the politics of inequality in rural West Bengal, page 191:

     Yet whatever their faith in the importance of a politicized citizenry, the framers of the Indian Constitution left little to the vagueries of mass political participation.

Translations

condition of being vague — see vagueness

thing which is vague — see vagueness

vagary — see vagary

See also

• vagary