noun
definition
A doubtful person or thing.
adjective
definition
Subject to, or causing doubt.
definition
Experiencing or showing doubt, sceptical.
definition
Undecided or of uncertain outcome.
definition
Fearsome, dreadful.
definition
Improbable or unlikely.
definition
Suspicious, or of dubious character.
definition
Unclear or unreliable.
Examples of doubtful in a Sentence
His tone was doubtful and he let the subject drop.
Felipa looked doubtful, but she didn't contest him.
Her expression was doubtful.
The cities which they founded - Cornus, Tharros, Sulci, Nora, Caralesare all on the coast of the island, and it is doubtful to what extent they penetrated into the interior.
Both these allied forms occur throughout central and southern Europe, but, though now abundant in England, it is doubtful whether they are there indigenous.
Considerable uncertainty existed as to the atomic weights of these metals, the values obtained by Berzelius being doubtful.
What his final decision was is perhaps doubtful.
The very idea of a ' logic ' in the history of ideas remains quite doubtful to me.
A lot of things you do make me very doubtful.
Whether, as alleged by some, Waynflete fled and hid himself during the period covered by the battle of Wakefield and Edward's fist parliament in 1461, is very doubtful.
The best proof of his not being ambitious of such a doubtful piece of preferment is that he made no attempt to get himself made king, regent or lieutenant-general of the kingdom at the time of the flight to Varennes in June 1791.
Many pieces still in existence are wrongly ascribed to him.; yet it is doubtful whether a single one of them was composed on purpose to deceive.
There are so few representations of armed men that it seems doubtful if there can have been any professional military class.
Huxley regarded the above scheme as nearly representing the affinities of the various Carinate groups - the great difficulty being to determine the relations to the rest of the Coccygomorphae, Psittacomorphae and Aegithognathae, which he indicated " only in the most doubtful and hypothetic fashion."
Jerome's mind was evidently full of anxiety about his translation of the Old Testament, for we find him in his letters recording the conversations he had with learned men about disputed readings and doubtful renderings; the blind Didymus of Alexandria, whom he heard interpreting Hosea, appears to have been most useful.
A twofold migration is doubtful, and, from what is known of the situation in Palestine in the 15th century B.C., is extremely improbable.
Later Judaism emphasized the idea of vicarious atonement for Israel through the sufferings of the righteous, especially the martyrs; but it is very doubtful whether the idea of the atonement through the death of the Messiah is a pre-Christian Jewish doctrine."
And as the need of making a text compels some sort of decision in every case, the "doubtful" readings of the tradition, some of which on the evidence would be doubtfully accepted and others doubtfully rejected, will all appear with the accepteds in the text.
Special consideration will be paid to "doubtful" readings, which will be distinguished in his work as "doubtfully accepted" or "doubtfully rejected."
What the exact contingent was which bannerets were expected to supply to the royal host is doubtful.'
On the banks of the Danube, a little above the city, are some remains of the piles of a bridge said by a very doubtful tradition to have been built by Darius (c. 500 B.C.).
But that is to speculate about God's providence - a practice that is highly doubtful if not disobedient.
I am equally doubtful whether these approaches can be combined with genuine decentralization.
Whether there was ever any strong likeness to any building in or near Whitby seems doubtful.
As to the development of the different organs, there is still much that remains doubtful.
In addition to the rare elements mentioned above, there are a score or so more whose existence is doubtful.
It is doubtful indeed whether any general conclusions can yet be drawn as to the relations between crystal structure and scalar properties and the relative stability of polymorphs.
Apart from doubtful instances it is there six times clearly engraved; four of the instances are angular, the other two are more or less rounded.
The treaty with the Latins is mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone, who had not seen it himself; indeed, it is doubtful whether it was then in existence, and in any case, considering the changes which the language had undergone, it would have been unintelligible.
About this time a Borgia of doubtful parentage was born, Giovanni, described in some papal documents as Alexander's son and in others as Cesare's.
It is related that, during the performance of one of his plays, the scaffolding of the wooden stage gave way, in consequence of which the Athenians built a theatre of stone; but recent excavations make it doubtful whether a stone theatre existed in Athens at so early a date.
It is to be remembered, however, that all these types interbreed freely, and that many intermediate, and forms of wholly doubtful position, occur.
The story of the destruction of the library by the Arabs is first told by Bar-hebraeus (Abulfaragius), a Christian writer who lived six centuries later; and it is of very doubtful authority.
Salecah is perhaps less doubtful; it is a remarkable name, and a ruin similarly styled, Salkhat, is to be seen in the Hauran.
Felipa Poey, in his Ictiologia Cubana, listed 782 species of fish and crustaceans, of which 105 were doubtful; but more than one-half of the remainder were first described by Poey.
There were also two Nordenfeldt submarine boats of doubtful efficiency.
Considering the dilatory methods of Orientals, even when they are creditors, it is doubtful whether this sum adequately covers the whole of the claims outstanding, and it may be found difficult, even for a parliament, to refuse claims which should equitably be admitted and which may be preferred later.
The cultivators, on the other hand, may not plant tobacco without permits from the regie, although the power of refusing a permit, except to known smugglers or persons of notoriously bad conduct, seems to be doubtful; nor may they sell to any purchaser, unless for export, except to the regie, while they are bound to deposit the whole of the tobacco crops which they raise in any one year in the entrepots of the regie before the month of August of the year following, [[Table A]].-Showing Revenues ceded to Ottoman Public Debt Administration at Various Periods to 1907-1908.
The emperor gathered little from the confused reports of their purposeless manoeuvres, but, secure in the midst of his " battalion square " of 200,000 men, he remained quite indifferent, well knowing that an advance straight on Berlin must force his enemy to concentrate and fight, and as they would bring at most 127,000 men on to the battlefield the result could hardly be doubtful.
It is stated in the gospels that the Last Supper was the Passover meal, though certain discrepancies between the accounts given in the Synoptics and in John render this doubtful.
Cleve, Lecoq de Boisbaudran and others into erbia, holmia, thulia and dysprosia, but it is still doubtful whether any one of these four splitting products is a single substance.
Later, in the age of the priestly schools, the ark received much attention, although it must obviously be very doubtful how far a true recollection of its history has survived.
It seems at present doubtful, however, whether the establishment of plantations of Ficus will be profitable under ordinary conditions in India.
Sigismund, king of the Romans, had, by the death of his brother Wenceslaus without issue, acquired a claim on the Bohemian crown; though it was then, and remained till much later, doubtful whether Bohemia was an hereditary or an elective monarchy.
A Roman villa, with various relics, has been discovered here, but it is doubtful how far the Romans made use of the brine springs.
In the Testicardines, where no such sliding action of the valves was necessary or possible, no muscles for such an object were required, consequently none took rise from the lateral portions of the valves as in Lingula; but in an extinct group, the Trimerellidae, which seems to be somewhat intermediate in character between the Ecardines and Testicardines, have been found certain scars, which appear to have been produced by rudimentary lateral muscles, but it is doubtful (considering the shells are furnished with teeth, though but rudely developed) whether such muscles enabled the valves, as in Lingula, to move forward and backward upon each other.
Nevertheless, on many occasions, fashion has led the preachers of a particular epoch to develop rules for the composition of sermons, the value of which is more than doubtful.
Aconitum Napellus, common monkshood, is a doubtful native of Britain, and is of therapeutic and toxicological importance.
The members of the tribunal have the right of putting questions to the counsel and agents of the parties and to demand from them explanation of doubtful points.
But the description of Jesus as "a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man," can hardly be genuine, and the assertion "this was the Christ" is equally doubtful, unless it be assumed that the Greek word Christos had become technical in the sense of false-Christ or false-prophet among non-Christian Jews.