hesitant
adjective
Simple meaning
Slow to act or speak because you're unsure.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hehzihtuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhɛzɪtənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Tending to hesitate, wait, or proceed with caution or reservation.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Tending to hesitate, wait, or proceed with caution or reservation.
Used this way, hesitant is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It keeps things gentle rather than emphatic.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Reluctant or hesitant
- Usage feel
- Understated and gentle
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.