inexact
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of inexact
Explanation
Something inexact is vague or not quite correct. If a doctor gives you an inexact diagnosis, you might want to see a specialist for a more specific opinion. When a poem's translation from one language to another is inexact, a lot of the original meaning can be lost. Some things, like weather prediction, simply have to be inexact — you could call meteorology, or the study of weather patterns, an "inexact science." The Latin root is exactus, "precise or accurate," with the added prefix in-, or "not."
Vocabulary lists containing inexact
Way Off: Synonyms for "Wrong"
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Wrong
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But because the draft was an inexact science, the surest way to extract value was to take as many shots as possible.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
These numbers are seasonally adjusted, and the government’s process for doing so is sometimes inexact, to say the least.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 11, 2026
Others combine to forge inexact recollections, grouping together years of returning to specific family properties, rental houses and cottages, condos and campsites.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2025
Quantifying bot and spam accounts on Twitter was always an inexact science, which Musk seized on when he tried to concoct a way out of his deal.
From Slate ● Oct. 27, 2023
Within a few hundred years, the big men acquired *Here, as elsewhere in this book, I am being chronologically inexact.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
