I'm ambivalent to ambiguous.

Actually 'ambivalent' itself is almost but not quite the right word. Concise Oxford definition says "having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone." Comes from the Latin for 'on both sides' (ambi) and 'worth' (valere).

It's not quite right because the word applies to the subjective reaction within one individual of being in two minds about a thing, whereas you want a word to describe the quality of the thing itself that evokes more than two contradictory ideas in more than one person.

So maybe 'multi' rather than 'ambi'? Is there such a word as multivalous or multivalerous? No I guess not. Or maybe
Polyvalerous or polyvalous?

Multiferous is close but not quite right either.

Last edited by The Pook; 03/12/2008 5:55 AM.