Picture a fork with two paths and no way to tell which is real: the mind hovers between yes and no, unable to settle. Dubious is that state — sometimes it sits in the person who cannot decide, sometimes it is attached to the thing that will not let you decide, because something about it does not add up.
From the word’s history
dubious comes from Latin dubius 'wavering, uncertain', which traces back to duo 'two' — the same 'two' behind doubt and double. The picture built into the word is a mind pulled between two options and unable to land on either.
dubious 來自拉丁文 dubius（搖擺不定的），而 dubius 追上去是 duo（二）——doubt、double 裡都是同一個「二」。所以這個字骨子裡就寫著「兩個選項」：心在兩邊之間晃，落不到任何一邊。理解這一點，為什麼 dubious 既能形容人的猶豫、又能形容事情的可疑，就變得很自然：都是因為有兩種可能而定不下來。
Wiktionary (dubious ← Latin dubius 'wavering', related to duo 'two'; cf. doubt), corroborated by Online Etymology Dictionary
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原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
dubiousadj/ˈd͡ʒuː.bi.əs/
- 1
Arousing doubt; questionable; open to suspicion.
- After he made some dubious claims about the company, fewer people trusted him.
- They were renowned as people of dubious morals.
- 2
In disbelief; wavering, uncertain, or hesitating in opinion; inclined to doubt; undecided.
- She was dubious about my plan at first, but later I managed to persuade her to cooperate.
- Last year, President Obama had large majorities in Congress and hopes of passing a comprehensive climate and energy bill. Next year, he faces a new Congress much more dubious about the reality of climate change and considerably more hostile to international efforts to deal with it.
- 3
board-gameschessgamesGenerally considered imprecise or wrong, but not totally unplayable.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。