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Reluctant   /rɪlˈəktənt/  /rilˈəktənt/   Listen
adjective
Reluctant  adj.  
1.
Striving against; opposed in desire; unwilling; disinclined; loth. "Reluctant, but in vain." "Reluctant now I touched the trembling string."
2.
Proceeding from an unwilling mind; granted with reluctance; as, reluctant obedience.
Synonyms: Averse; unwilling; loth; disinclined; repugnant; backward; coy. See Averse.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Reluctant" Quotes from Famous Books



... moved to reluctant admiration. "When I was in London, sir," he said in an excited whisper to the Colonel, "I did see Mathews fight with Westwicke, and thought I had seen fencing ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... congratulated the country on the coming Centennial celebration at Philadelphia, the completion of the ninth census, the successful working of the Bureau of Education, the operations of the Department of Agriculture, and the civil-service reform which Congress had been so reluctant to consider. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... reprobating the tumultuous proceedings of the colonists. The repeal act was sent up to the lords, where it encountered a violent opposition, but it passed toward the end of March, when it received the reluctant consent of the crown. Sixty-one peers entered a strong protest against its non-taxing principle, and it was observed that in both houses the members belonging to the royal household voted with the opposition: a strong proof of his majesty's feeling ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... fellow's retreating form with reluctant admiration. "He moves like a trained athlete and he hasn't got a bad face," he admitted. "I pray he does not prove to be ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... particularity. From first to last I had no chance and everybody in the room understood it. There were a dozen witnesses to prove that I had been in the thick of the rebellion. Among the rest was Volney, in a vile temper at being called on to give testimony. He was one of your reluctant witnesses, showed a decided acrimony toward the prosecution, and had to have the facts drawn out of him as with a forceps. Such a witness, of high social standing and evidently anxious to shield me, was worth to the State more than all the other paltry witnesses combined. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine


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