Dubiety (pronounced doo-bahy-i-tee or dyoo-bahy-i-tee)
(1) Doubtfulness; doubt; the state of being doubtful.
(2) A matter of doubt; a doubtful matter; a particular
instance of doubt or uncertainty.
1740s: From the Late Latin dubietās (doubt; uncertainty), a dissimilation of dubiitās, the construct being dubi(us)
(vacillating, fluctuating (and figuratively
“wavering in opinion, doubting”) + -etās
(the noun suffix, a variant of -itās (after vocalic stems)). The earlier form dubiosity was in use by the
1640s and dubiousness had emerged within a decade; for whatever reason, “dubiety”
declined while “dubious” flourished and endures to this day. Dubiety, dubitation, dubiosity &
dubitability are nouns, dubitable is an adjective and dubitably is an adverb;
the noun plural is dubieties.
Dubiety is one of those words which has become vanishingly
rare while its antonym forms (indubitably, indubitable, indubitability, indubitableness,
indubitability, indubitation, indubiosity) meaning “clearly true; providing no
possibility of doubt; In a manner that leaves no possibility of doubt;
undoubtedly) has survived in a niche, that being a deliberately humorous
interjection (although used unwisely, it tends to be thought pretentious). The most common form is the adverb “indubitably”
a word in use since the early seventeenth century. It differs from other jocular coinings in that
it was wholly organic, unlike “combobulate” and “gruntle” which were respectively
nineteenth & twentieth century back-formations from discombobulate (itself
fanciful) & disgruntled (although “gruntle” had a long history in another
context).
The synonyms of dubiety include “scepticism, mistrust, distrust & suspicion”, all in common use and all vested with the helpful virtue of being understood buy most, a quality not enjoyed by dubiety. Still, the word in there to be used and it adds variety so all who put themselves through reading literary novels might meet it. So those after a certain style might find it handy but not all are amused by such stylishness. The stern Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) included an entry which listed examples of “working & stylish words” which opened with the passage: “No one, unless he has happened upon this article at a very early stage of his acquaintance with this book, will suppose that the word “stylish” is meant to be laudatory.” He went on to say there was a place for such forms “…when they are used in certain senses…” but made it clear that for most purposes the plain, simple “working word” is the better choice. He offered the example of “deem” which in law has a precise and well understood meaning so is there essential but it’s just an attempt at stylishness if used as a substitute for “think”. Other victims of his disapproving eye included “viable” which he judged quite proper in the papers of biologists describing newly formed organisms but otherwise a clumsy way of trying to assert something was “practicable” and “dwell” & “perchance” which appeared usually as “…conspicuous, like and escaped canary among the sparrows.” Henry Fowler liked stylish phrases but preferred plain words.
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.
Fowler completed his text by 1925 and things have since
changed, some of the “stylish” cohort seemingly having become “working” words,
possibly under the influence of the use in computing and other technologies,
their once specialized sense migrating into general use because the language of
those industries became so common. Although
he did twenty years before the first appeared, one suspects he’d not have found
Ferraris “stylish” and would probably have called them “flashy” (in the sense
of “vulgar ostentation” rather than “sparkling or brilliant”); dating from the
mid sixteenth century, “flashy” would seem to have a suitably venerable
lineage.
