DOUBTFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does doubtful mean? 

• DOUBTFUL (adjective)
  The adjective DOUBTFUL has 3 senses:

1. open to doubt or suspicion

2. fraught with uncertainty or doubt

3. unsettled in mind or opinion

  Familiarity information: DOUBTFUL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DOUBTFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Open to doubt or suspicion

Synonyms:

doubtful; dubious; dubitable; in question

Context example:

it was more than dubitable whether the friend was as influential as she thought

Similar:

questionable (subject to question)

Derivation:

doubtfulness (uncertainty about the truth or factuality or existence of something)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Fraught with uncertainty or doubt

Synonyms:

doubtful; dubious

Context example:

dubious about agreeing to go

Similar:

incertain; uncertain; unsure (lacking or indicating lack of confidence or assurance)

Derivation:

doubtfulness (the state of being unsure of something)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Unsettled in mind or opinion

Synonyms:

doubtful; tentative

Context example:

drew a few tentative conclusions

Similar:

unsettled (still in doubt)

Derivation:

doubtfulness (the state of being unsure of something)

 Context examples 

I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added: Tut, tut, child.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"So much?" was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for some minutes.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Which of the two sisters was preferred by Captain Wentworth was as yet quite doubtful, as far as Anne's observation reached.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Catherine, a little doubtful of this, could not help answering, “I wish you could have gone too. It is a pity you could not all go.”

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Hunter was steady, that we knew; Joyce was a doubtful case—a pleasant, polite man for a valet and to brush one's clothes, but not entirely fitted for a man of war.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But old One Eye was doubtful.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Esther had given her a rosary of black beads with a silver cross, but Amy hung it up and did not use it, feeling doubtful as to its fitness for Protestant prayers.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I shall not be in any doubtful, or distant, or unapproachable region.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Oh! my dear mother, you must be wrong in permitting an engagement between a daughter so young, a man so little known, to be carried on in so doubtful, so mysterious a manner!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

How that visit was to be acknowledged—what would be necessary—and what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)