Word.ws English Dictionary

vague

/veɪɡ/

vague adjective: not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.

Adjective

vague (comparative vaguer, superlative vaguest)

  1. Not 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. To try and hit an object with a vague thought is like trying to hit the bull's eye with a lump of putty: when the putty reaches the target, it flattens out all over it, and probably covers...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
  2. Not having a precise meaning.
    • a vague term of abuse
    Synonyms:
    ambiguous, equivocal
  3. Not clearly defined, grasped, or understood; indistinct; slight.
    • only a vague notion of what’s needed
    • a vague hint of a thickening waistline
  4. Not clearly felt or sensed; somewhat subconscious.
    • a vague longing
    • ⁠For though my nature rarely yields
      ⁠To that vague fear implied in death;
      ⁠Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath,
      The howlings from forgotten fields; […]1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XL”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 62
  5. Not thinking or expressing one’s thoughts clearly or precisely.
    • Waxed-fleshed out-patients / Still vague from accidents, / And characters in long coats / Deep in the litter-baskets […]1962, Philip Larkin, Toads Revisited
    Synonyms:
    dazed
  6. Lacking expression; vacant.
    Synonyms:
    vacant, vacuous
  7. Not sharply outlined; hazy.
    • He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. 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
  8. Wandering; vagrant; vagabond.
    • The Lord Gray incourag'd his men to set sharply upon the vague villains1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward VI
    • She danced along with vague, regardless eyes, / Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short: [...]1819, John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, stanza VIII, page...

Noun

vague (plural vagues)

  1. An indefinite expanse.
    • The gray vague of unsympathizing sea / That dragged his fancy from her moorings back / To shores inhospitable of eldest time.1869 December (indicated as 1870 January), James Russell Lowell, “The Cathedral”, in James Thomas Fields, editor, The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume...
  2. (obsolete) A wandering; a vagary.
    • [T]he Scots had some leasure to plaie their vagues1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC

Verb

vague (third-person singular simple present vagues, present participle vaguing, simple past and past participle vagued)

  1. (archaic) to wander; to roam; to stray.
    • [The soul] doth vague and wander.1603, Philemon Holland, transl., The Philosophie, commonly called, the Morals
  2. To become vague or act in a vague manner.
    • Vaguely, yes. I've vagued all my life; that's been my curse.1894, Mrs. Campbell Praed, Christina Chard, page 52
    • 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
  3. (Internet, intransitive) To make vague negative comments publicly; to make highly veiled complaints or insults.
    Synonyms:
    vaguepost

vague meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

vague in Hindi

vague, obscure, unclear
धूमिल dhūmil

vague in Tamil

தெளிவில்லாத, குழப்பமான, மழுப்பலான

vague in Urdu

بےمعنی, بےسروپا, دھندلا, غیرواضح, گول مول, کچا

vague in Bengali

vague, obscure, unclear
অস্পষ্ট ośpośṭo
More languagesFewer languages
vague in Telugu
అస్పష్టంగా
vague in Malayalam
അവ്യക്തമായ
vague in Kannada
ಕಂಡಿತವಲ್ಲದ, ತೆಳುವಲ್ಲದ, ಅಸ್ಪಷ್ಟ, ಅಸ್ಫುಟ
vague in Persian
مبهم mobham
vague in Vietnamese
mơ hồ, mông lung

Examples of vague in a sentence

  • I haven’t the vaguest idea.
  • 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:

All 40 example sentences with vague

Synonyms of vague

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of vague

Forms of vague

Adjective
comparativevaguer
superlativevaguest
Noun
pluralvagues
Verb
third-person singular presentvagues
present participlevaguing
past participlevagued
pastvagued

Origin of vague

From Middle French vague, from Latin vagus (“uncertain, vague”, literally “wandering, rambling, strolling”).

Words formed from vague

Phrases with vague

Words that rhyme with vague

Questions about vague

What does vague mean?
Vague means not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.
What is vague in Hindi?
Vague in Hindi is धूमिल (dhūmil). See Vague meaning in Hindi.
How do you use vague in a sentence?
I haven’t the vaguest idea.
What part of speech is vague?
Vague can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce vague?
Vague is pronounced /veɪɡ/.

Words near vague in the dictionary

  1. vagrating
  2. vagring
  3. vagrom
  4. vagroms
  5. vags
  6. vague
  7. vagueblog
  8. vagueblogged
  9. vagueblogging
  10. vagueblogs
  11. vaguebook

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vague (page history and authors); धूमिल (Hindi) (page history and authors); vague (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vague (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); অস্পষ্ট (Bengali) (page history and authors); vague (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vague (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vague (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-vague.ogg, en-us-vague.ogg.

Cite this entry: “vague.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vague. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.