[f. UNCLEAR a.] Lack of clearness; obscurity.
a. 1658. Durham, Comm. Rev. xvii. (1660), 665. From this unclearnesse it ariseth, that it is hotly disputed.
a. 1718. Penn, Tracts, Wks. 1726, I. 748. The Voluminousness of the Books is no small Token of the Unclearness of the Writers.
1811–31. Bentham, Logic, Wks. 1843, VIII. 242/2. Where unclearness (why not unclearness as well as uncleanness) has place in a discourse.
1842. Pusey, Crisis Eng. Ch., 51. It is no disrespect to speak of the unclearness or narrowness of a system.
1881. W. R. Smith, Old Test. in Jew. Ch., v. 29. This unclearness of view rests upon an error.
