How to Use indeterminate in a Sentence

indeterminate

adjective
  • But the space is indeterminate and the whole thing’s hard to read.
    Washington Post, 8 June 2022
  • Then the boy is an indeterminate age, but still teaching his Mom about love and life, as kids do.
    Renee Valois, Twin Cities, 19 Oct. 2019
  • The other options are life in prison or an indeterminate term of 25-years-to-life.
    Paighten Harkins, The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 Sep. 2021
  • Between the rabid fans of the sci-fi franchise and his indeterminate work on a new chapter for the space saga, that’s no easy task.
    John Wenzel, The Know, 1 Dec. 2019
  • Another spinoff, which added a slice of indeterminate cheese and a few strips of chewy bacon, was even more of a mish-mashed mess.
    Emily Heil, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2023
  • And, to be clear, a wave -- of indeterminate size -- remains the most likely outcome.
    Chris Cillizza, CNN, 8 May 2018
  • First up, Skull & Bones is delayed yet again, this time to some indeterminate date.
    Hayden Dingman, PCWorld, 17 May 2019
  • An indeterminate variety will often just keep adding foliage and does not set fruit in time to beat the hot, or in the fall, the cold weather.
    Calvin Finch, ExpressNews.com, 12 July 2019
  • As the title suggests, much of the movie takes place during this train ride, in an indeterminate time before cell phones.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 25 Jan. 2022
  • That would have been a tremendous amount of job loss and money taken out of the economy for an indeterminate amount of time.
    Nr Interview, National Review, 23 June 2021
  • Ground overruns figure and space grows indeterminate, and within the mists bodies skew and bend, feet appear in the wrong places.
    Cate McQuaid, BostonGlobe.com, 25 Apr. 2018
  • Gilded creatures of indeterminate species are locked in combat with a wild boar as dark as night.
    John Hooper, WSJ, 9 Oct. 2018
  • At some indeterminate time after the concert, Kit shows up at Matt’s suite.
    Lia Beck, refinery29.com, 15 Feb. 2021
  • Most tomato cages are too small for indeterminate tomato plants destined to grow to six feet or so.
    Washington Post, 26 May 2021
  • Congee is my reminder that, under the hard surfaces, the stuff of life is mostly soft and indeterminate.
    New York Times, 20 May 2021
  • Top off indeterminate plants so there isn’t any new growth and baby the existing fruits.
    Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 12 Sep. 2019
  • Judge Peter Lynch sentenced Hussain to an indeterminate term of 5 to 15 years in prison.
    CBS News, 31 May 2023
  • Riding on a camel or in the open back of a jeep, one traverses miles and miles only to encounter more indeterminate vastness.
    Andrew Solomon, Condé Nast Traveler, 24 July 2019
  • As the pandemic drags on into a bleak and indeterminate future, so does the question of its origins.
    Adam Federman, The Atlantic, 25 Sep. 2021
  • This is because suicide is indeterminate, much like the X plus Y equals 1 equation.
    Joseph Franklin, Scientific American, 11 June 2018
  • The next scene takes place at some indeterminate future point, but Kim isn't in it and neither is Jimmy, really.
    Kat Rosenfield, EW.com, 19 July 2022
  • In apparent homage to the leisure suit, the blazer is double breasted, the trousers are flared wide, and the turtleneck is mock and of indeterminate synthetic fabric.
    Kathleen Walsh, Glamour, 8 Nov. 2022
  • Even the lower growing determinate types that reach three to four feet should be trained upwards and indeterminate types that grow to more than eight feet need a cage.
    Tom MacCubbin, OrlandoSentinel.com, 7 Apr. 2018
  • Now, the country is facing the prospect of an election at an indeterminate future point without the party that won the most votes from citizens.
    New York Times, 24 May 2021
  • Last week, the Crocker closed for an indeterminate amount of time because of public health restrictions put in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
    Erika Mailman, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 Nov. 2020
  • In this case the beast was an elephant, not an indeterminate Dutch chimera, and a god floated through the sky in a golden vehicle, extending a helping hand.
    Hari Kunzru, Harper’s Magazine , 4 Jan. 2022
  • Ladislaw offers a metaphor that might well serve the present moment, in which English life is being reshaped to still indeterminate ends.
    Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 21 Nov. 2019
  • Their average age is 63, and many have indeterminate sentences that have left them behind bars for decades.
    Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 29 Nov. 2020
  • One of our two dogs, Pickle, a rescue of indeterminate age who has been by my side for 13 years, had been diagnosed with kidney failure.
    Hannah Selinger, Travel + Leisure, 29 May 2023
  • If Butler looks elsewhere, the pool of candidates would be large and indeterminate.
    David Woods, The Indianapolis Star, 1 Apr. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'indeterminate.' 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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