inexactitude

[ in-ig-zak-ti-tood, -tyood ]

noun

1. the quality or state of being inexact or inaccurate; inexactness.
2. an instance of this.

Word History and Origins

Origin of inexactitude¹

From French, dating back to 1780–90; in- ³, exactitude

Example Sentences

I was taught at Cambridge University that though one could not say something such as “Mr. so-and-so is a liar,” it was permissible to say, “the Right Honorable so-and-so is guilty of a ‘terminological inexactitude.’”

From Washington Post

For families in search of an explanation for their child’s distress, the inexactitude of psychiatry—its overlapping diagnoses, its uncertain prognoses—can be frustrating.

From Slate

It contains the code of information that allows it to replicate, and does so with enough inexactitude to allow natural selection to work its wonders.

From Washington Post

Over the receding jingoistic din, Didion’s voice told another story, about women’s inner lives formed in a nation that was, as Elizabeth Hardwick put it, in a 1996 essay about Didion, “blurred by a creeping inexactitude about many things, among them bureaucratic and official language, the jargon of the press, the incoherence of politics, the disastrous surprises in the mother, father, child tableau.”

From The New Yorker

The inexactitude was by design.

From The New Yorker