Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use vague in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Vague means not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms. Example: “I haven’t the vaguest idea.”

Examples of vague by meaning

adjectiveNot clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.

  • It follows from what has been said that a vague thought has more likelihood of being true than a precise one.1921, Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
  • Throughout the first week of his presidency, Dulles and Bissell continued to brief Kennedy on their strategy for Cuba, but the men were vague and their meetings offered little in the way of hard facts.2004, Chris Wallace, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage

adjectiveNot having a precise meaning.

  • a vague term of abuse

adjectiveNot clearly defined, grasped, or understood; indistinct; slight.

  • only a vague notion of what’s needed
  • a vague hint of a thickening waistline
  • I haven’t the vaguest idea.

adjectiveNot clearly felt or sensed; somewhat subconscious.

  • a vague longing

adjectiveNot sharply outlined; hazy.

  • The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

verbTo become vague or act in a vague manner.

  • A man's mind vagued up a little, for how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion?1939, John Steinbeck, East of Eden
  • You're all vagued out.2009, Zoe Foster Blake, Air Kisses, →ISBN

More sentences with vague

  • We have given body to what was just a vague idea.From the entry body
  • People claiming to be psychic may shoehorn an event into fulfillment of some vague past prediction.From the entry shoehorn
  • He was vague but said something to the effect that he'd do it soon.From the entry to the effect
  • The politician's vague response to corruption allegations was essentially a nothing-to-see-here moment.From the entry nothing to see here
  • The plans are a bit vague in that area.From the entry area
  • Give me a clue because the question is too vague.From the entry clue
  • The terms of membership agreement were vague.From the entry membership
  • He was very vague, speaking only in generalities.From the entry generality
  • The new law proved to be unenforceably vague.From the entry unenforceably
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:gay vague.From the entry gay vague
  • Yet he is still vague on many of the big questions facing Britain.2026 July 9, “Is AI writing taking over Westminster?”, in The Economist, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC. From the entry Burnhamism
  • At times, README.txt is vague; some sections have been blacked out, presumably on legal advice.2022 October 27, Simon Parkin, “README.txt by Chelsea Manning review – secrets and spies”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the…. From the entry readme
  • Efilism has a vague correspondence with utilitarianism but emphasizes the suffering of life over utilitarianism’s greater good.2020, Patricia MacCormack, The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, page 153. From the entry efilism
  • One criticism that emerged of Deep Adaptation more specifically was that this vague forthcoming disaster that Mr.2020 December 26, Jonah E. Bromwich, “The Darkest Timeline”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry deep adaptation
  • But his tirades have earned him a reprimand––if a brief, vague one––from his own Supreme Court nominee.2017 February 15, Peter Beinart, “American Institutions Are Fighting Back Against Trump”, in The Atlantic. From the entry fulminate
  • I still have vague plans to write a potty untraining book.2014 October 15, smol_firebirb, Twitter. From the entry potty untraining
  • And this isn’t just some vague perception from the anti-Microsoft crowd.2013 April 29, Steve Kovach, “Is the PC dead?”, in CNN Business. From the entry idc
  • Some people just experience a vague uneasieness around them, others actually fear deflated ones.2013, Rodney Curtis, Getting Laid (Off), →ISBN. From the entry globophobia
  • Hoo, boy, Angie thought with only a vague sense of reality.2012, Elizabeth Bevarly, Bride Of The Bad Boy, →ISBN. From the entry hoo, boy
  • Most strike the same ominously breathless tone, and all reach the same vague nonconclusions.2008 February 6, Neil Genzlinger, “Otherworldly Phenomena: Explainable? You Decide”, in New York Times. From the entry nonconclusion
  • "Oldster maybe, but she can drag man away" (7) anag(drag man): definition too vague and weakish anagrind.2007, Ilan Caron, “SCWC 27: results”, in rec.puzzles.crosswords (Usenet). From the entry anagrind
  • Teens of all levels of functioning on the spectrum do not handle vague information well.2006, Temple Grandin, forward to Chantal Sicile-Kira, Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum, Perigee, page xv. From the entry on the spectrum
  • Tie, have only a vague notion of China, despite living in the middle of it.2006 March 19, Jim Yardley, “Deep in China, a Poor and Pious Muslim Enclave”, in The New York Times (Asia Pacific section), New York…. From the entry Dongxiang
  • The sense of déja vu is caught up in my vague, fluish dreams.2006, Sterling R. Braswell, American Meth. From the entry fluish
  • For two vague regions, one topological relation exists between any pair of crispings.2003, Wenzhong Shi, Peter Fisher, Michael F. Goodchild, Spatial Data Quality. From the entry crisping
  • Chris thought of the speech pathologist, Jennifer, with pique and vague groinal stirrings.2003, Matthew Sharpe, The Sleeping Father. From the entry groinal
  • There may have been a vague communality of purpose, but we were never a team.1997, Ian McEwan, Enduring Love, Vintage (1998), page 10. From the entry communality
  • But too many of them are vague ballads, and too many are gospely, horn-section, jump-blues kitsch.1994, SPIN - Jul 1994, page 74. From the entry gospely
  • He was also a bad writer: his principal work is diffuse, chaotic, vague, and repetitive.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford…. From the entry repetitive
  • Secondly, this definition readmits the vague dualism that it purports to exclude.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford…. From the entry readmit

Meaning of vague

  1. adjective Not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.
  2. adjective Not having a precise meaning.
  3. adjective Not clearly defined, grasped, or understood; indistinct; slight.

Full definition of vague

Questions about vague in a sentence

How do you use vague in a sentence?
Vague is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “I haven’t the vaguest idea.”
What is a short sentence with vague?
“a vague longing”
What does vague mean?
Vague means not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vague (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use vague in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/vague. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.