NOUN
- an ambiguous grammatical construction; e.g., `they are flying planes' can mean either that someone is flying planes or that something is flying planes
How To Use amphibology In A Sentence
- It had been an excellent quaere to have posed the devil of Delphos, and must needs have forced him to some strange amphibology. Religio Medici
- [114] and must needs have forced him to some strange amphibology. Religio Medici
- There are six linguistic fallacies: equivocation, amphiboly or amphibology, accent, composition, division, and figure of speech or parallel-word construction.
- It had been an excellent quaere to have posed the devil of Delphos, and must needs have forced him to some strange amphibology. Religio Medici
- Insofar as each one of the three words underlined above has more than one meaning, the sentence is an amphibology, and one difficult to translate literally.
- Self-destructive treason and the haunting discourse of amphibology reduce the play to the strutting and fretting of a poor player upon the stage of political battle, ultimately, in its amphibolic circularity, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.
- Abbreviated by subsequent usage to _bête-'ni-pié_, the appellation has amphibology; -- for there are two words _ni_ in the patois, one signifying "to have," and the other "naked. Two Years in the French West Indies
- Solomon looked astonished — “Xantippe, the wife of Socrates,” said he, “is recorded a termagant and a scold, but with her acetosity his philosophy enabled him to bear; but it is apodictical to me, that whoever has the misfortune to marry you will, without amphibology, have more occasion for patience and philosophy than ever Socrates had.” Lovers and Friends; or, Modern Attachments
- AEtolians and Romans, about the winning of a battle they had with their joined forces obtained, made it of some importance, that in the Greek songs they had put the AEtolians before the Romans: if there be no amphibology in the words of the French translation. The Essays of Montaigne — Complete
- He spoke of him afterwards as “that amphibolous being sitting calmly and unmoved on the throne of amphibology, while he cheats and deludes us by his double meaning, covert phraseology, and claps his hands when he sees us involved in his insidious figures of speech, as a spider rejoices over a captured fly.” Luther and Other Leaders of the Reformation
