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Delphic ambiguity is forecasting which is heavily qualified or subject to misinterpretation—a practice attributed to an
oracle of Delphi
Pythia (; grc, Πυθία ) was the name of the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. She specifically served as its oracle and was known as the Oracle of Delphi. Her title was also historically glossed in English as the Pythoness ...
, who answered a question by saying that a great empire would fall if
Croesus
Croesus ( ; Lydian: ; Phrygian: ; grc, Κροισος, Kroisos; Latin: ; reigned: c. 585 – c. 546 BC) was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC.
Croesus was re ...
crossed the
River Halys
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
, which was a logical step in his plan to attack the
Persian Empire. Such ambiguities are often presumed intentional in their superficial appearance of providing more information than critical examination of their content would support—for example, that famous prophecy might be expected to "come true" ''whichever'' of those two respective kingdoms' armies was
defeated in detail at the battle which in due course took place beyond that river.
Professional economic projections are sometimes labelled as delphic because of the degree of conditional detail forced by variables that can at best only be estimated.
Forecasting