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hesitantly

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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    From hesitant + -ly.

    Adverb

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    hesitantly (comparative more hesitantly, superlative most hesitantly)

    1. With hesitation.
      • 2013, Michael Craft, Boy Toy, →ISBN:
        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.
      • 2006 December, Michael Lang, “Globalization and Its History”, in The Journal of Modern History, vol. 78, no. 4, page 924:
        It approaches irrefusably, hesitantly, terrible as fate, the great task and question: how shall the earth as a whole be managed? (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1885)
      • 1988, Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Шо́лохов (Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov), Quiet flows the Don (translated), volume 1, page 96:
        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—'
      • 2019 April 15, J Oliver Conroy, “A lawyer set himself on fire to protest climate change. Did anyone care?”, in The Guardian[1]:
        A woman asked, hesitantly: “Is he the one who … self-immolated?”
      • 2023, Kristýna Sněgoňová, “The Dragon of Brno”, in Jakub Mařík, transl., edited by Jakub Mařík and Martin Fajkus, Monster Hunter Fantom. A Monster Hunter Anthology, Baen Books, published 10 May 2024, →ISBN, unnumbered page:
        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.”
    2. With reluctance.

    Synonyms

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    Translations

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