penumbrous

comparative more penumbrous · superlative most penumbrous

1. Partially shaded.

   the penumbrous calm of the cathedral interior

2. Vague; ill-defined; unclear.

   Everyone knows God in his penumbrous knowledge of common esse.

   1961, Gerard Smith, Lottie H. Kendzierski, The philosophy of being: Metaphysics I, page 326

   3 more examples

   Yet such Commissions were awarded, and far more frequently than might be supposed in view of the infinitely wider gulf—both social and educational—which divided the eighteenth-century Officer from the rank and file, than the penumbrous border line which separates them today.

   1951, Reginald Hargreaves, This Happy Breed: Sidelights on Soldiers and Soldiering, page 237

   This is that from which metaphor springs dissatisfying, penumbrous - the silence on occult matters, or those of predestination, of genetics or environment - and the source of circumlocution, the ambiguous alchemical directives.

   1982, Open Letter, page 119

   In the early nineteenth century, when high school and college education was a rare experience for the average American citizen, judicial determination of vague, penumbrous fundamental rights was carried out by the educated classes.

   1992, James R. Cooper, Twilight's Last Gleaming: The Price of Happiness in America, page 39