!Ambiguity Ambiguity literally means inexactness or uncertainty of meaning in language. It is commonly understood as a fault in style making the writing vague or the expression equivocal when what is wanted is precision and singleness of reference. Ambiguity in the mind is its lack of decisiveness. However, the term in literary criticism has been widely used to identify the special poetic device – the use of a word or expression such that two or more distinct references, or two or more diverse kinds of connotation which are equally relevant. Some critique use ‘multiple meaning’ and ‘plurisignation’ as alternate terms to avoid the pejorative aspect of the word “ambiguity”. William Empson and some other recent critics have pointed out the risk of “intensive search for ambiguities” that “easily leads to over-reading: ingenious, overdrawn, and sometimes self-contradictory explications that violate the norm of the English language and ignore the controls upon reference exerted by the context of a literary passage.”