How to Use equivocal in a Sentence

equivocal

adjective
  • He responded to reporters' questions with equivocal answers.
  • The experiment produced equivocal results.
  • The younger, more equivocal Hitchens would not have put it that way.
    — Christian Lorentzen, Harper’s Magazine , 20 July 2022
  • But Brown has been equivocal about its plans for the next agreement.
    — Sacha Sloan, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Jan. 2023
  • But the text of his Fox News piece is more equivocal than its top lines would suggest.
    — Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 8 Mar. 2025
  • Trump’s appeal to his fans, yet Trump himself seems equivocal about his project.
    — Steve Coll, The New Yorker, 5 June 2022
  • Conley seemed to give very equivocal answers around that, and what happened.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2020
  • Yet in the local politics of those thriving places, this growth has been a much more equivocal force.
    — Ronald Brownstein, CNN, 24 Oct. 2017
  • But as the emails threaten to spill over into some weird form of sexting, the guests become more equivocal.
    — Sean Malin, Vulture, 13 Aug. 2021
  • But the language was too equivocal to do more than annoy partisans on either side.
    — Mark Swed, latimes.com, 4 May 2017
  • Research is equivocal on whether this practice burns more fat than hitting the pavement after a meal or two.
    — Andrew Heffernan, Men's Health, 27 Feb. 2023
  • Others are more equivocal about the binary-like terms on offer.
    — Angus Finney, Variety, 15 Jan. 2022
  • Everything else in parenting was so equivocal, such a gray area.
    — Meaghan O'Connell, Longreads, 10 Apr. 2018
  • Siegal is gentle but unsparing in pointing out that the truth is more equivocal.
    — Ruth Franklin, Washington Post, 1 Mar. 2023
  • But the plan presented consists of a one-page sheet of paper with broad outlines and equivocal promises.
    — Dan Balz, Washington Post, 29 Apr. 2017
  • But when McGill sent me her summary of the study later, the results were equivocal.
    — Burkhard Bilger, New Yorker, 29 June 2026
  • And there are a few bright moments, even behind a steel mask, where Pascal makes his equivocal bounty hunter feel more grounded.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 13 Nov. 2019
  • Legal experts said the equivocal wording meant that the adult cabaret law was not exactly a ban on drag but could still have consequences.
    — Michael Paulson, New York Times, 5 Mar. 2023
  • To be clear, the messaging was that the MRI is somewhat equivocal.
    — Anthony Slater, The Mercury News, 1 Mar. 2017
  • These things are - the conclusions of the scientists on those things are actually quite mild and quite soft and equivocal.
    — Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 13 Apr. 2011
  • Yet studies of the impact of oxybenzone on coral reefs have yielded only equivocal results.
    — Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books, 4 Nov. 2021
  • Still, Saudi Arabia’s response to Trump’s plan was equivocal, at best.
    — Joseph Hincks, Time, 29 Jan. 2020
  • Others are equivocal, preferring to focus on the race at hand in Indiana.
    — Kayla Dwyer, The Indianapolis Star, 10 Jan. 2024
  • The Labour leader has previously been equivocal on whether police should be able to shoot to kill terror suspects.
    — Jane Merrick, CNN, 5 June 2017
  • Collins was equivocal when asked about Kavanaugh in the Capitol on Tuesday morning.
    — Nash Jenkins, Time, 10 July 2018
  • Her message and manner received equivocal assessments in the West.
    — New York Times, 21 Mar. 2021
  • The answer may be far more equivocal than some might suspect, and may steer those committees from a blanket approach to a director’s age, as many have done in the past.
    — Michael Peregrine, Forbes, 14 Feb. 2024
  • However, YouTube remained equivocal about whether the ban would be permanent.
    — Adi Robertson, The Verge, 17 Mar. 2023
  • Throughout his first term, reporters have repeatedly tried to pin Trump down on these questions, and his answers have always been equivocal at best.
    — Gilad Edelman, Wired, 30 Sep. 2020
  • Other vocal supporters from 2016 are more equivocal, or have gone quiet, at least about the election.
    — WSJ, 29 Oct. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'equivocal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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