Also 6–7 -ie. [a. OFr. amphibolie, ad. L. amphibolia, a. Gr. ἀμφιβολία ambiguity. See AMPHIBOLE.]
1. Ambiguous discourse; a sentence that may be construed in two distinct senses; a quibble. (See AMPHIBOLOGY, which is the earlier and more popular word.)
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 307. What a crafty Amphibolie or Æquivocation.
1632. B. Jonson, Magn. Lady, II. i. Come, leave your schemes, And fine amphibolies, parson.
1682. Evats, Grotius’ War & Peace, 199. If a sentence will admit of a double sence, they term it an Amphiboly.
1803. Edin. Rev., I. 271. The amphibolies, paralogisms, &c. of which Kant speaks, are impossible.
2. A figure of speech: Ambiguity arising from the uncertain construction of a sentence or clause, of which the individual words are unequivocal: thus distinguished by logicians from equivocation, though in popular use the two are confused.
1588. Fraunce, Lawiers Log., I. iv. 27 b. Amphiboly, when the sentence may bee turned both the wayes, so that a man shall be uncertayne what waye to take.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 247/1. Sophisms in the Word are six … 2. By Amphibolie.
1681. Hobbes, Rhet., 162. Now of those [fallacies] that are joyned together. It is either Amphibolia or the doubtfulness of speech: or [etc.].
1803. Edin. Rev., I. 262. The perplexing controversies on the divisibility of matter, are the product of a double amphiboly, which confounds sensation and conception.
