hesitantly
/hˈɛzɪtəntli/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.44 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
With hesitation.
adv
With reluctance.
Example Sentences
- "The sounds from Barb's clarinet began to take the shape of a melody, played quietly at first, hesitantly, with a misblown note here and there."
- "It approaches irrefusably, hesitantly, terrible as fate, the great task and question: how shall the earth as a whole be managed? (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1885)"
- "Grigory hesitantly took her in his arms to kiss her, but she held him off, bent supply backwards and shot a frightened glance at the windows. 'They'll see!' 'Let them!' 'I'd be ashamed—'"
- "A woman asked, hesitantly: “Is he the one who … self-immolated?”"
- "The teenager stared down the barrel of Petr's gun for a few seconds, then asked hesitantly, “What kind of questions?” “Something's going on,” Petr began. The pimply deadlingshrugged. “This is Brno, there's always something going on.”"
Etymology
Etymology tree Latin haereō Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Italic *-tos Latin -tus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin -tō ▲ Latin -tō Latin -itō Latin -titō Latin haesitō Latin haesitānsbor. English hesitant Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der. Proto-Germanic *līkąder. Proto-Germanic *-līkaz Proto-Germanic *-ê Proto-Germanic *-līkê Proto-West Germanic *-līkē Old English -līċe Middle English -ly English -ly English hesitantly From hesitant + -ly.
Inflected Forms
more hesitantly (comparative)
most hesitantly (superlative)