INDISTINCT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does indistinct mean? 

• INDISTINCT (adjective)
  The adjective INDISTINCT has 1 sense:

1. not clearly defined or easy to perceive or understand

  Familiarity information: INDISTINCT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INDISTINCT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not clearly defined or easy to perceive or understand

Context example:

only indistinct notions of what to do

Similar:

bedimmed (made dim or indistinct)

bleary; blurred; blurry; foggy; fuzzy; hazy; muzzy (indistinct or hazy in outline)

cloudy; nebulose; nebulous (lacking definite form or limits)

dim; faint; shadowy; vague; wispy (lacking clarity or distinctness)

faint (indistinctly understood or felt or perceived)

veiled (muted or unclear)

Also:

unclear (not clear to the mind)

indefinite (vague or not clearly defined or stated)

Antonym:

distinct (easy to perceive; especially clearly outlined)

Derivation:

indistinctness (the quality of being indistinct and without sharp outlines)

 Context examples 

Maria's notions on the subject were more confused and indistinct.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

There was an indistinct talk of its being wet.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing chorus of screams in the distance, and knew that the Martinez had gone down.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

It is just an indistinct flash of pale green and yellow captured on a motion sensor camera but experts believe Aboriginal rangers have found a new population of one of Australia's most elusive birds.

(Aboriginal Rangers Find Evidence of One of Australia’s Rarest Birds, VOA)

The first faint winter’s dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly see the occasional figure of an early workman as he passed us, blurred and indistinct in the opalescent London reek.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged; and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be indistinct through the soft medium of a hazy atmosphere.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Two or three times, by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I advised my companion, therefore, that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this, likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to know where she went.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)