Dictionary

vaguery en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈveɪɡəɹi/

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. (uncountable) Vagueness, the condition of being vague.
   • Incumbent on the quest for vaguery are frustration and unrequited desire; complete accessibility is inherently denied as part of its most basic definition. 2003, Annette Fierro, The Glass State: the technology of the spectacle, Paris, 1981-1998, page 103:
   • […] this badge of rivalry and intrusion, and of the vaguery and vacillation which restrain them through dread of danger. 1859, New Exegesis of Shakespeare, pages 245–246:
   • There is a sharp and effective contrast between the incisiveness and energy of his speech and the vaguery and haziness he is attacking. 1988, Kenneth Pickering, How to Study Modern Drama:
   • 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. 1985, Stephen Chan, The Commonwealth Observer Group in Zimbabwe: a personal memoir, page 11:
   • 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. 1977 (first publication; republication in 2003), Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain: crisis and neo-nationalism - Page 68
2. (countable) A vagueness, a thing which is vague, an example of vagueness.
3. (alt-of, countable, in-plural, misspelling) Misspelling of vagary.
   alt of vagary
   • 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. 1983, Marvin Davis, Rank and Rivalry: the politics of inequality in rural West Bengal, page 191:
   • Some were indeed powerful men belonging to powerful families, exercising authority and influence, but the vagueries of colonial economic conditions made their holdings precarious. 1980, Nicholas P. Cushner, Lords of the Land: sugar, wine, and Jesuit estates of coastal Peru, 1600-1767, page 14:

Forms

Relateds

vagary