Words / A / Medicine

ambiguous

adjective/æmˈbɪɡjuəs/

B2CEFR level
20/100Rarity: fairly common
TechnicalRegister

Open to more than one interpretation and therefore unclear.

Avoid ambiguous abbreviations at handover, since a misread instruction can harm the patient.

Similar: unclear, equivocal

Topic: Clinical handover in Medical English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More medicine words: Clinical handover