different between vague vs ague

English

Etymology

From Middle French vague, from Latin vagus (“uncertain, vague”, literally “wandering, rambling, strolling”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ve??/
• IPA^(key): (Upper Midwest US) /væ?/
• Rhymes: -e??, -æ?

Adjective

vague (comparative vaguer, superlative vaguest)

1. Not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.
   • 2004: Chris Wallace, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage

     Throughout the first week of his presidency, Dulles and Bissell continued to brief Kennedy on their strategy for Cuba, but the men were vague and their meetings offered little in the way of hard facts.

   inarticulate, Synonym: unclear; see also Thesaurus:incomprehensible

2. Not having a precise meaning.

   Synonyms: ambiguous, equivocal

3. Not clearly defined, grasped, or understood; indistinct; slight.

   Synonyms: ambiguous, equivocal, indistinct, obscure; see also Thesaurus:vague

4. Not clearly felt or sensed; somewhat subconscious.

5. Not thinking or expressing one’s thoughts clearly or precisely.
   • 1962, Philip Larkin, "Toads Revisited"

     Waxed-fleshed out-patients / Still vague from accidents, / And characters in long coats / Deep in the litter-baskets […]

   Synonym: dazed

6. Lacking expression; vacant.

   Synonyms: vacant, vacuous

7. Not sharply outlined; hazy.

   Synonyms: fuzzy, hazy, ill-defined; see also Thesaurus:indistinct

8. Wandering; vagrant; vagabond.
   • 1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward VI

     The Lord Gray incourag'd his men to set sharply upon the vague villains

   Synonyms: erratic, roaming, unsettled, vagrant, vagabond

Related terms

Translations

Noun

vague (plural vagues)

1. (obsolete) A wandering; a vagary.
2. An indefinite expanse.
   • 1870, James Russell Lowell, The Cathedral

     The gray vague of unsympathizing sea.

Verb

vague (third-person singular simple present vagues, present participle vaguing, simple past and past participle vagued)

1. (archaic) to wander; to roam; to stray.
   • 1603, Philemon Holland (translator), The Philosophie, commonly called, the Morals

     [The soul] doth vague and wander.

2. To become vague or act in a vague manner.

Further reading

• vague in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• vague in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• vague at OneLook Dictionary Search

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin vagus.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /?va.??/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /?ba.??/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /?va.?e/

Adjective

vague (feminine vaga, masculine and feminine plural vagues)

1. vague

Derived terms

• vagament

Further reading

• “vague” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “vague” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “vague” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “vague” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

French

Etymology 1

From Middle French [Term?], from Old French vague (“movement on the surface of a liquid, ripple”), from Old Norse vágr (“sea”), from Proto-Germanic *w?gaz (“wave, storm”), from Proto-Indo-European *we??- (“to drag, carry”). Cognate with Swedish våg (“wave”), Middle Dutch waeghe, wage (“wave”), Old High German w?ge (“wave”), Old English w?g (“wave, billow, motion, flood”). More at waw, wave.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /va?/

Noun

vague f (plural vagues)

1. wave
   • 2014, Indila, Comme un bateau

Derived terms

• faire des vagues
• vague de chaleur
• vague de froid
• vaguelette
• vaguette

Etymology 2

From Middle French vague, from Latin vagus (“uncertain, vague”, literally “wandering, rambling, strolling”). Possibly a doublet of gai.

Adjective

vague (plural vagues)

1. vague

Noun

vague m (plural vagues)

1. vagueness

   Synonym: distrait

Derived terms

• terrain vague
• vague à l'âme
• vaguement

Further reading

• “vague” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Galician

Verb

vague

1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive of vagar

Portuguese

Verb

vague

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of vagar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of vagar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of vagar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of vagar

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ba?e/, [?ba.??e]

Verb

vague

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of vagar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of vagar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of vagar.

English

Etymology

From Middle English agu, ague, borrowed from Middle French (fievre) aguë, “acute (fever)” (Modern French fièvre aiguë), from Late Latin (febris) acuta (“acute fever”), from Latin ac?tus (“sharp, acute”) + febris (“fever”).

Doublet of acute.

Pronunciation

• enPR: ??gyo?o, IPA^(key): /?e?.?ju/

Noun

ague (countable and uncountable, plural agues)

1. (obsolete) An acute fever.
2. (pathology) An intermittent fever, attended by alternate cold and hot fits.
   • 1867: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1867 Edition, chapter III.

     He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off.
     "I think you have got the ague," said I.
     "I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he.
     "It's bad about here," I told him. "You've been lying out on the meshes, and they're dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too."

   • 1852: Susanna Moodie, "Roughing it in the Bush: or, Forest Life in Canada"

     'Ague and lake fever had attacked our new settlement. The men in the shanty were all down with it, and my husband was confined to his bed on each alternate day, unable to raise hand or foot, and raving in the delirium of the fever.'

   • 1810: Lord Byron, "Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos"

     'Twere hard to say who fared the best:
     Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!
     He lost his labour, I my jest:
     For he was drowned, and I've the ague

3. The cold fit or rigor of the intermittent fever

4. A chill, or state of shaking, as with cold.
   • November 23, 1698, John Dryden, letter to Mrs Stewart

     I 'scap'd with one cold fit of an ague

5. (obsolete) Malaria.
   • 1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred:

     Where I'm from, people have learned that mosquitoes carry ague.

Usage notes

The pronunciation /?e??/ is a common pronunciation by people to whom this is a book word (a word one learns by reading and has never heard spoken). /?e?.?ju/ is the standard pronunciation.

Related terms

• acute
• ague cake
• ague tree

Translations

See also

• fainaigue

Verb

ague (third-person singular simple present agues, present participle aguing, simple past and past participle agued)

1. (transitive) To strike with an ague, or with a cold fit.

Translations

Anagrams

• gaue

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English agu, ague, from Middle French (fievre) aguë (“acute (fever)”). Cognate with English ague.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???(j)u/, /e??(j)u/

Noun

ague (plural agues)

1. ague (acute fever)

References

• “ague” in Eagle, Andy, editor, The Online Scots Dictionary^[1], 2016.