different between amphiboly vs equivocation

English

Etymology

From Old French amphibolie, from Latin amphibolia, from Ancient Greek ????????? (amphibolía, “ambiguity”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /am?f?b?li/

Noun

amphiboly (countable and uncountable, plural amphibolies)

1. (grammar) An ambiguous grammatical construction.
   • 1781, Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason," from John Meiklejohn 1855 translation

     Without this reflection I should make a very unsafe use of these conceptions, and construct pretended synthetical propositions which critical reason cannot acknowledge and which are based solely upon a transcendental amphiboly, that is, upon a substitution of an object of pure understanding for a phenomenon.

   • 1931, Adrian Coates, "Philosophy as Criticism and Point of View," Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 23, p. 339,

     By logical errors I mean such simple things as Equivocation, Amphiboly, and Begging the Question.

   • 1987, Jeffrey Buechner, "Radically Misinterpreting Radical Interpretation," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 45, no. 4, p. 410,

     The language might be fraught with word ambiguity or sentence amphiboly.

Usage notes

• Strictly speaking, in an amphiboly the individual words are unambiguous; the ambiguity results entirely from the linguistic manner in which they have been combined.

Derived terms

• amphibology

Translations

See also

• equivocation

References

Anagrams

• ambophily

English

Alternative forms

• æquivocation (archaic)

Etymology

c. 1380, from Old French equivocation, from Medieval Latin aequivoc?ti?nem, accusative singular of aequivoc?ti?, from aequivoc?, from Late Latin aequivocus (“ambiguous, equivocal”), from Latin aequus (“equal”) + voc? (“call”);a calque of Ancient Greek ???????? (hom?numía).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??kw?v??ke???n/, /??kw?v??ke??n?/, /??kw?v??ke??n/
• Hyphenation: e?quiv?o?ca?tion
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

equivocation (countable and uncountable, plural equivocations)

1. (logic) A logical fallacy resulting from the use of multiple meanings of a single expression.
2. The use of expressions susceptible of a double signification, possibly intentionally and with the aim of misleading.

Related terms

• amphiboly, evasion, evasiveness, prevarication

Translations

References

Old French

Noun

equivocation f (oblique plural equivocations, nominative singular equivocation, nominative plural equivocations)

1. equivocation

   Si avoit trovee occasion de li gaber par l'equivocation de son nom