hesitation

1 indecision in speech or action [syn: vacillation, wavering]

2 a certain degree of unwillingness; "a reluctance to commit himself"; "after some hesitation he agreed" [syn: reluctance, hesitancy, disinclination, indisposition]

3 the act of pausing uncertainly; "there was a hesitation in his speech" [syn: waver, falter, faltering]

English

Etymology

From haesitationem (haesitatio), from haesitare.

Pronunciation

• (UK) /hezɪˈteɪʃǝn/

  Rhymes: -eɪʃǝn

Noun

1. An act of hesitating; suspension of opinion or action; doubt; vacillation.
2. A faltering in speech; stammering.

Related terms

• hesitate

Translations

Fabian policy, Micawberism, abeyance, averseness, backwardness, balbuties, bashfulness, boggle, boggling, break, caesura, calculation, canniness, capriciousness, care, careful consideration, carefulness, caution, cautiousness, cease-fire, chance, chanciness, changeableness, circumspection, compunction, courtesan, day off, delay, deliberate stages, deliberateness, deliberation, demimondaine, demimonde, demirep, demur, demurral, diffidence, dilatoriness, discretion, doubt, drop, dubiety, dysphemia, erraticism, erraticness, falter, faltering, fancy woman, fickleness, gingerliness, guardedness, hedge, hedging, heed, heedfulness, hesitance, hesitancy, hesitating, hetaera, hold-off, holiday, incalculability, incertitude, indecision, indecisiveness, indemonstrability, indeterminacy, indetermination, indeterminism, indisposition, interim, interlude, intermezzo, intermission, intermittence, interruption, interval, irresolution, judiciousness, kept, lapse, laxness, layoff, letup, luck, lull, mindfulness, mistrust, modesty, mugwump, objection, palilalia, pause, pawkiness, prior consultation, procrastination, protest, prudence, prudentialness, qualm, qualm of conscience, qualmishness, randomness, recess, recoil, regardfulness, reluctance, remission, remissness, respite, rest, safeness, safety first, scruple, scrupulosity, scrupulousness, shilly-shally, shilly-shallying, shrinking, shyness, slackness, slowness, slowness to act, solicitude, stall, stammer, stammering, stand-down, stay, stickling, stutter, stuttering, suspense, suspensefulness, suspension, temporization, tentativeness, thoroughness, to-and-fro, traulism, truce, unaccountability, uncertainness, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, uncommunicativeness, undecidedness, undeterminedness, unforeseeableness, unprecipitateness, unpredictability, unprovability, unsureness, unverifiability, vacation, vacillation, wavering, whimsicality, whore