incertação

Incertação is a noun in Portuguese that denotes the state or quality of being uncertain, doubt, or ambiguity. The term derives from Latin incertatio, through the suffix -ção, and is used in formal or literary contexts to indicate a lack of certainty in information, judgments, or outcomes.

Usage is relatively rare in everyday speech; more common synonyms are incerteza and dúvida. Incertação can express a subjective doubt (a incertação do pesquisador quanto aos resultados) or an objective uncertainty in a given situation (incertação de dados parciais). It often appears in philosophical, epistemological, or legal texts to emphasize unresolved questions. The plural form is incertações.

Examples include: "A incertação quanto à eficácia do método levou os pesquisadores a aplicar novas experiências." and "Houve incertação nos dados apresentados, o que exigiu verificação adicional." In many contexts, incertação is replaced by more everyday terms, but it remains a precise, formal option for nuanced discussion of doubt or uncertainty.

See also: incerteza, dúvida, hesitação, epistemologia.