different between nebulous vs nebulously

English

Etymology

From Middle English, from Middle French nebuleus, from Latin nebul?sus (“full of mist, foggy, cloudy”), from nebula (“mist, vapour, cloud”), from Proto-Indo-European *néb?os (“cloud, vapor, fog, moist, sky”). Cognate with Ancient Greek ????? (néphos, “cloud”), Old High German nebul (“cloud, fog”) (German Nebel), Old English nifol, neowol (“dark, gloomy, obscure, precipitous, prone”). More at neveling, nuel.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /?n?bj?l?s/

Adjective

nebulous (comparative more nebulous, superlative most nebulous)

1. In the form of a cloud or haze; hazy.
2. Vague or ill-defined.
3. Relating to a nebula or nebulae.

Related terms

• nebula
• nebular
• nebulosity

Translations

Anagrams

• unblouse

English

Etymology

nebulous +? -ly

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /?n?b.j?.l?s.li/

Adverb

nebulously (comparative more nebulously, superlative most nebulously)

1. In a manner like that of a cloud or haze.

   The vapour drifted nebulously into the hall.

2. As if viewed through a cloud or haze.
3. Vaguely, without clear purpose or specific intention.

   He waved his hand nebulously in the direction he intended to go.

Quotations

• 1866 - Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War

  The bladed guns are gleaming—
      Drift in lengthened trim,
  Files on files for hazy miles—
      Nebulously dim.

• 1905 - Jack London, The Game, chapter IV

  And there he stood, all but naked, godlike, in a white blaze of light. She had never conceived of the form of God except as nebulously naked, and the thought-association was startling.

• 1920 - Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, chapter XVI, section 2

  Mysteriously aching, nebulously sad, she slipped away, half-convinced but only half-convinced that it was horrible and unnatural, this postponement of release of mother-affection, this sacrifice to her opinionation and to his cautious desire for prosperity.

• 1928 - H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

  For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where - God in heaven! - the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.

• 1931 - H. P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness, chapter 6

  Archaic covered bridges lingered fearsomely out of the past in pockets of the hills, and the half-abandoned railway track paralleling the river seemed to exhale a nebulously visible air of desolation.

Related terms

• nebulosity
• nebulous
• nebulousness

Translations