disambiguate

---

Pronunciation

• (British) IPA: /dɪ.samˈbɪɡjuːeɪt/

Verb

disambiguate (disambiguates, present participle disambiguating; past and past participle disambiguated)

1. To remove ambiguities from; to make less ambiguous.
2. (linguistics) To distinguish one word or lexical unit (from a different one which has a similar form).
   • 1967, Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, vol. 43, p. 619:

     When necessary, the Greek spelling is disambiguated by an appended phonetic transcription.

   • 2016, John Simpson (lexicographer), The Word Detective, Little, Brown 2016, p. 281:

     The dictionary's traditional “readers” have largely survived this transition, too. They find earlier and better uses of terms which computers can't (in the jargon) disambiguate—distinguish from other similar uses.

Translations

• French: désambiguïser, désambigüiser
• German: disambiguieren, eindeutig machen, vereindeutigen
• Italian: disambiguare
• Portuguese: desambiguar, desambiguizar (Portugal), desambigüizar (Brazil)
• Spanish: desambiguar

---

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.002