amphiboly

Meanings

nounamphiboly (countable and uncountable, plural amphibolies)

countablerhetoricuncountablegrammarAn ambiguous grammatical construction.
The language might be fraught with word ambiguity or sentence amphiboly.
1987, Jeffrey Buechner, “Radically Misinterpreting Radical Interpretation,”, in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, volume 45, number 4, page 410
2 more examples
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.
By logical errors I mean such simple things as Equivocation, Amphiboly, and Begging the Question.
1931, Adrian Coates, “Philosophy as Criticism and Point of View,”, in Philosophy, volume 6, number 23, page 339

Synonyms & antonyms

nounan ambiguous grammatical construction; e.g., ‘they are flying planes’ can mean either that someone is flying planes or that something is flying planes

Similar

amphibology

Broader

ambiguity

Also see

amphibology

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.