Synonyms

up in the air

Idioms

Not settled, uncertain, as in The proposal to build a golf course next to the airport is still up in the air. This metaphoric expression likens something floating in the air to an unsettled matter. Put as in the air from the mid-1700s, it acquired up in the first half of the 1900s.

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.

Though the answers to these questions are very much up in the air, we can be confident that AI will profoundly affect Wall Street.

From Barron's

McKinney is due to fly from Dubai to Dublin on Wednesday but said that was "up in the air at the minute".

From BBC

But to bet it all, thinking you have the answers when everyone is up in the air, how can you be certain?

From The Wall Street Journal

He crouched down in preparation, and then, from hops seventy through seventy-six, he rose up in the air just as she did and landed at the same time too.

From Literature

Uttering a couple of those deep grunts, he just seemed to rise up in the air like fog off the river and disappeared in the branches of the bur oak tree.

From Literature

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023