How to Use equivocal in a Sentence

equivocal

adjective
  • He responded to reporters' questions with equivocal answers.
  • The experiment produced equivocal results.
  • The younger, more equivocal Hitchens would not have put it that way.
    Christian Lorentzen, Harper’s Magazine , 20 July 2022
  • But Brown has been equivocal about its plans for the next agreement.
    Sacha Sloan, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Jan. 2023
  • To be clear, the messaging was that the MRI is somewhat equivocal.
    Anthony Slater, The Mercury News, 1 Mar. 2017
  • But as the emails threaten to spill over into some weird form of sexting, the guests become more equivocal.
    Sean Malin, Vulture, 13 Aug. 2021
  • Yet in the local politics of those thriving places, this growth has been a much more equivocal force.
    Ronald Brownstein, CNN, 24 Oct. 2017
  • Trump’s appeal to his fans, yet Trump himself seems equivocal about his project.
    Steve Coll, The New Yorker, 5 June 2022
  • But as the election approached, Mr. Trump grew less equivocal.
    Frances Robles, New York Times, 15 Nov. 2016
  • Conley seemed to give very equivocal answers around that, and what happened.
    Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2020
  • From his Fifth Symphony onward, Shostakovich practiced an art of equivocal triumph, and the finale of the Tenth might be his deftest feat in this line.
    Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2022
  • Collins was equivocal when asked about Kavanaugh in the Capitol on Tuesday morning.
    Nash Jenkins, Time, 10 July 2018
  • Research is equivocal on whether this practice burns more fat than hitting the pavement after a meal or two.
    Andrew Heffernan, Men's Health, 27 Feb. 2023
  • But the plan presented consists of a one-page sheet of paper with broad outlines and equivocal promises.
    Dan Balz, Washington Post, 29 Apr. 2017
  • These things are - the conclusions of the scientists on those things are actually quite mild and quite soft and equivocal.
    Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 13 Apr. 2011
  • And there are a few bright moments, even behind a steel mask, where Pascal makes his equivocal bounty hunter feel more grounded.
    Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 13 Nov. 2019
  • But the language was too equivocal to do more than annoy partisans on either side.
    Mark Swed, latimes.com, 4 May 2017
  • Still, Saudi Arabia’s response to Trump’s plan was equivocal, at best.
    Joseph Hincks, Time, 29 Jan. 2020
  • And to date, the small amount of data generated by CYNK-001 in several types of cancer have been equivocal.
    Adam Feuerstein, STAT, 31 Mar. 2020
  • Legal experts said the equivocal wording meant that the adult cabaret law was not exactly a ban on drag but could still have consequences.
    Michael Paulson, New York Times, 5 Mar. 2023
  • Siegal is gentle but unsparing in pointing out that the truth is more equivocal.
    Ruth Franklin, Washington Post, 1 Mar. 2023
  • Others are more equivocal about the binary-like terms on offer.
    Angus Finney, Variety, 15 Jan. 2022
  • The Labour leader has previously been equivocal on whether police should be able to shoot to kill terror suspects.
    Jane Merrick, CNN, 5 June 2017
  • Data on the Mizzou Effect appear to be equivocal, but there’s nothing new about the theory.
    Daniel Engber, Slate Magazine, 12 Sep. 2017
  • Everything else in parenting was so equivocal, such a gray area.
    Meaghan O'Connell, Longreads, 10 Apr. 2018
  • Other vocal supporters from 2016 are more equivocal, or have gone quiet, at least about the election.
    WSJ, 29 Oct. 2020
  • But a cat is not a squirrel, and its menace looms above the oblivious father and uneasy daughter in images that convey the equivocal nature of the cat’s predator mind.
    Celia Storey, Arkansas Online, 4 Apr. 2022
  • Throughout his first term, reporters have repeatedly tried to pin Trump down on these questions, and his answers have always been equivocal at best.
    Gilad Edelman, Wired, 30 Sep. 2020
  • In the wake of the deadly racial violence in Charlottesville this month, five of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were hailed as moral authorities for condemning hate in less equivocal terms than the commander in chief did.
    Robert Costa, Washington Post, 22 Aug. 2017
  • Yet studies of the impact of oxybenzone on coral reefs have yielded only equivocal results.
    Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books, 4 Nov. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'equivocal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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