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Doubtful; skittish. [Obs.]

lying below a bed of black lava, in Calaveras County, California. It is regarded as very doubtful whether the skull really belonged to the deposit in which it was found. If it did, it indicates an unprecedented antiquity for human beings of an advanced type.

A possibity; a likelihood; an opportunity; -- with reference to a doubtful result; as, a chance result; as, a chance to escape; a chance for life; the chances are all against him. So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune. That I would get my life on any chance, To mend it, or be rid on't Shak.

That which guides or directs one in anything of a doubtful or intricate nature; that which gives a hint in the solution of a mystery. The clew, without which it was perilous to enter the vast and intricate maze of countinental politics, was in his hands. Macaulay.

Dependent on conjecture; fancied; imagined; guessed at; undetermined; doubtful. And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me. Shak. A slight expense of conjectural analogy. Hugh Miller. Who or what such editor may be, must remain conjectural. Carlyle.

deliberation of two or more persons on some matter, with a view to a decision. Thus they doubtful consultations dark Ended. Milton.

ning point, or specially important juncture; important as regards consequences; hence, of doubtful issue; attended with risk; dangerous; as, the critical stage of a fever; a critical situation. Our circumstances are indeed critical. Burke. The small moment, the exact point, the critical minute, on which every good work…

Persons of doubtful reputation; esp., women who are kept as mistresses, though not public prostitutes; demireps. Literary demimonde, writers of the lowest kind.

A woman of doubtful reputation or suspected character; an adventuress. [Colloq.] De Quincey.

ruction. Esth. ix. 5. 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. Shak. Destruction of venerable establishment. Hallam.

apable of being disputed; liable to be called in question, controverted, or contested; or doubtful certainty or propriety; controvertible; as, disputable opinions, propositions, points, or questions. Actions, every one of which is very disputable. Jer. Taylor.

Doubtful. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Doubtfulness; uncertainty; doubt. [R.] Lamb. "The dubiety of his fate." Sir W. Scott.

The state of being doubtful; a doubtful statement or thing. [R.] Men often swallow falsities for truths, dubiosities for certainties, possibilities for feasibilities. Sir T. Browne.

Doubtful or not settled in opinion; being in doubt; wavering or fluctuating; undetermined. "Dubious policy." Sir T. Scott. A dubious, agitated state of mind. Thackeray.

Tending to doubt; doubtful. [R.] -- Du"bi*ta*tive*ly, adv. [R.] . Eliot.

Uncertain, as an indication or sign; doubtful. "How equivocal a test." Burke. Equivocal chord (Mus.), a chord which can be resolved into several distinct keys; one whose intervals, being all minor thirds, do not clearly indicate its fundamental tone or root; the chord of the diminished triad, and the diminished seventh…

To use words of equivocal or doubtful signification; to express one's opinions in terms which admit of different senses, with intent to deceive; to use ambiguous expressions with a view to mislead; as, to equivocate is the work of duplicity. All that Garnet had to say for him was that he supposed he meant to equivocate…

r apt to take exceptions, or to object; captious. [Obs.] At least effectually silence the doubtful and exceptious. South. -- Ex*cep"tious*ness, n. [Obs.] Barrow.

Atrial or special observation, made to confirm or disprove something doubtful; esp., one under conditions determined by the experimenter; an act or operation undertaken in order to discover some unknown principle or effect, or to test, establish, or illustrate some suggest or known truth; practical test; poof. A politi…