Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Not conclusive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not conclusive in evidence or argument; not leading to a determination or conclusion; not decisive or convincing; indeterminate.
  • Not conclusive in action; reaching no definite conclusion or result; producing no conclusive effect; ineffective; inefficient: as, inconclusive experiments.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Not conclusive; leading to no conclusion; not closing or settling a point in debate, or a doubtful question.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Not conclusive, not leading to a conclusion

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not conclusive; not putting an end to doubt or question

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I guess that's what you call inconclusive in a press release.

    The Black Ice Connelly, Michael, 1956- 1993

  • For de Man, this double bind, far from being a reflection of the "authoritative voice" that he describes at the essay's opening, instead "produced frustrating books and teachers" — books and teachers that remain "inconclusive" rather than synthetic or summative, books and teachers trapped in the double imperative of close textual analysis and a conflicted yet "persistent commitment to the historical outlook."

    'At the Far End of this Ongoing Enterprise...' 2005

  • Studies on that question remain inconclusive, however.

    Could Neanderthals Communicate? | Impact Lab 2007

  • German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy met in Berlin on Wednesday after what was described as an "inconclusive phone call" read: "it ended with someone hanging up on someone"

    The Guardian World News Matina Stevis 2011

  • The follow up question is "What happens when there are more clouds" and the answer is "inconclusive" - the reduction in sunlight might induce a cooling effect, the increase in cloud insulation might induce a warming effect, or there might be a little of both.

    The Sun and Global Warming, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • I love how the media is describing the result as "inconclusive" - they are so in the tank for Obama that if he beat her by 10 percentage points, it would be the knockout blow.

    wilkes is barren 2008

  • And in an interview, she deemed the adverse health effects of steroid use "inconclusive" - thereby reminding voters of the and other banned performance-enhancing substitutes in the WWE.

    Yahoo! News: Top Stories 2010

  • Tests of a new bayonet replacement remain inconclusive.

    Archive 2009-05-01 Dungeekin 2009

  • Tests of a new bayonet replacement remain inconclusive.

    High Court Outlaws Killing on the Battlefield Dungeekin 2009

  • It was also inconclusive, which is why negotiating a government will go on for several more weeks.

    Iraqi Angst Grows Amid Political Stalemate, Violence 2010

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