AMBIGUITY

In ordinary usage, ambiguity is considered as a fault in style. It gives more than one meaning to an expression and leaves the readers and audience uncertain. Since the publication of William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) the term is used as a literary device or poetic device. It is a literary device that is the use of a single word or expression to signify two or more meanings, or two or more references, or to express two or more diverse attitudes or feelings. In other words, ambiguity is a word, phrase, or statement which contains more than one meaning. Multiple meaning and plurisignation are the alternative terms for ambiguity. New critics considered ambiguity as one of the important requirements of good poetry. Because ambiguous words and expressions can stimulate or evoke several different meanings or thoughts in poetry. for example.

"Thou still unravished bride of quietness" 

This is a line from John Keats's famous poem, Ode on a Gracian Urn. In the line, the word "still" can mean "unmoving" or "not yet changed".

Sometimes ambiguity may also lead to the risk of overreading, overdrawn, and contradictory explication of a literary word or passage.