noun

• The quality or state of being hesitant.

  ‘Jackson took advantage of some hesitancy in the defence to rifle in a shot’

  More example sentences

  • ‘With equal frequency he swept the ball off the sod without a second's hesitancy, and all told his was a performance fit to grace any final.’
  • ‘The hesitancy and uncertainty that characterised the lead-up to this conflict has now been taken into the battlefield.’
  • ‘There is one man who will have no doubts or hesitancies.’
  • ‘She wavered between hesitancy and her natural propensity for fun.’
  • ‘And by and large, they want to have questions asked and they want to have some hesitancy about this initiative.’

  Synonyms

  uncertainty, hesitation, hesitance, unsureness, doubt, doubtfulness, dubiousness, irresolution, irresoluteness, indecision, indecisiveness, equivocation, vacillation, wavering, scepticism, nervousness, second thoughts

  reluctance, unwillingness, disinclination, unease, uneasiness, ambivalence, demurral, compunction

  View synonyms