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Hesitancy   /hˈɛzɪtənsi/   Listen
Hesitancy

noun
1.
A feeling of diffidence and indecision about doing something.  Synonym: hesitance.
2.
A certain degree of unwillingness.  Synonyms: disinclination, hesitation, indisposition, reluctance.  "His hesitancy revealed his basic indisposition" , "After some hesitation he agreed"



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"Hesitancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... carefully—and classed him immedialely as a romantic figure. He gave the effect of towering self-confidence erected on a slight foundation—just under the surface of each of his decisions she discerned a hesitancy that was in decided contrast to the ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... dissimulation both in speech and manner appeared perfect. By the keen eye of Carlos, however—with his knowledge of the true situation—the tremor of the speaker's lips, slight as it was—his uneasy glance—and an occasional hesitancy in his speech, were all observed. Though Carlos was deceiving him, he was not ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... tells us, "held his auditors in a sort of fascination. One felt that in his explanations there was not a flaw, not a hesitancy. All seemed ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... all her air of hesitancy. She had, as she was wont to say, talked herself enthusiastic, and in the ardour of her purpose to annihilate the misunderstanding that had troubled her so long she felt herself ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... situation was not improved by Pultusk, Eylau, or Friedland. Dissensions in the field were not concealed by the hallelujahs and hosannas of the populace in the cities; victory bore no fruits; without Austria the next step could not be taken, and hesitancy still marked that uneasy monarchy as its own. Prussia, although the principal in the fight, was but a feeble power. England, though reaping the harvest of Russia's commerce, had become niggardly in regard to subsidies, and had delayed ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... that if the merits of a good bill were properly explained to a legislature committee, there will be no hesitancy in having it favorably reported out and finally passed. I believe the legislature of 1919 took this view of the tree planting bill introduced by myself, as it was passed by both the Senate and the House, and later received the signature of Governor Sleeper, thus making it an ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... the most perplexing: If the formerly foreign word has been taken over and if it can therefore be utilized without hesitancy, can it be made to form its plural in accord with the customs of English. Here those who seek to make the English language truly English and to keep it truly pure, will meet with sturdy resistance. It will not be easy to persuade the literate, the men of culture, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English

... to imagine a billiard ball which feels it moves others, but which does not feel that it is moved. What we call decision is an idea which decides us because it exercises more power over us than the others do; what we term deliberation is a hesitancy between two or three ideas which at the moment have equal force; what we name volition is an idea, and what we call will is our understanding applied to facts. We do not want to fight; we conceive the idea ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... which kind friends had sent to her, and among them were some curiously mottled, green and rose-colored, petals, which she had designed for a wreath, on the first page of the little herbarium, which it was her intention to prepare; and then, with great hesitancy, and protesting their unworthiness, she repeated these simple lines, which she had composed for an inscription within the wreath. I wrote ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... loon, far down on the lake. As the distant cry shrilled up the mountainside, the white bull stirred, shook his antlers, and blew loudly through his nostril. It was a note of challenge—but in it the bear divined a growing hesitancy. Perhaps, after all, this fight, which had gone so sorely against him, might not have to be fought out! He dropped, whirled about so quietly one could hardly follow the motion—and in a flash was up again on his haunches, right paw uplifted, eyes blazing vigilant ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... the spot where he had last seen the man, the cattle were still milling, but were getting calmer, and had no hesitancy in scattering when he rode among them slashing right and left with his quirt and firing his revolver over ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... assent with another nod; and on this he turned to an adjacent door, opened it gently, whipped out his flash-lamp, and passed through. Without sign of hesitancy, she followed; and like two shadows they dogged the dancing spot-light of the flash-lamp, through a linen-closet and service-room, down a shallow well threaded by a spiral of iron steps and, by way of the long corridor linking the kitchen-offices, to a stout door secured only ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... fact, is the justification of Plato's peculiar dialectical method, of its inexactness, its hesitancy, its scruples and reserve, as if he feared to obtrude knowledge on an unworthy receiver. The treatise, as the proper instrument of dogma [188] —the Ethics of Aristotle, the Ethics of Spinoza—begins with a truth, or with a clear conviction of truth, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... the door, Jack in wistful insistence, hungry for their companionship, and the Doge and Mary in common hesitancy for a phrase before parting from him. He ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... "Les Evangiles." He brings out the contradiction between the literary taste of the artist, which is delicate, individual, and true, and the opinions of the critic, which are borrowed, old-fashioned and wavering. This hesitancy of choice between the beautiful and the true, between poetry and prose, between art and learning, is, in fact, characteristic. Renan has a keen love for science, but he has a still keener love for good writing, and, if necessary, he will sacrifice ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Alas, he did not know. Why, then, this hesitancy! Once more he essayed the effort, but a qualm of nausea overwhelmed him. He did ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of her face and the occasional quivering of her long eyelashes, showed that she felt at all, as at an early hour next morning she presided at the breakfast prepared for the travelers. There was no tremor in her voice, no hesitancy in her manner, and a stranger could not have told which of the young men before her held her heart in his possession, or which had kept her wakeful the entire night, revolving the propriety ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... Fictitious Characters.—But the very greatest characters of fiction are worth everybody's while; and surely the masters need have felt no hesitancy in asking any one to meet Sancho Panza, Robinson Crusoe, Henry Esmond, Jean Valjean, or Terence Mulvaney. In fact, the most amazing thing about a great fictitious figure is the multitude of very different people that the character is capable of ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... church demanding to hear in every preacher the wonder of his age. But they do ask that a man be audible; that his voice, if not melodious as a silver bell, be human; that his pronunciation, if not faultless, be distinct, and his delivery without painful hesitancy or torrential rush. Surely these requirements are reasonable enough, and it is, at least, open to question whether a man who, manifestly, can never be able to meet expectations so moderate should consider himself, or be deemed by others, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... Without hesitancy he marched up to it, and lifting the large moose skin which served as its only door, he stooped down and entered in. A pleasant fire was burning on the ground in the centre, and partly circled around it was the Indian family. As though Oowikapun ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... taste or direction, his gaze fixed upon the trim, slender figure in blue. He now saw that her dark eyes were filled with a soft seriousness that belied her brave smile; a delicate pink had come into her clear, high-bred face; the hesitancy of the gentlewoman enveloped her with a mantle that shielded her from any suspicion of boldness. Brock struggled to his feet, ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... capriciously with the silent and apparently causeless obstinacy to which very old persons are subject, and which makes them resemble children. In order to sit down beside the young lady he needed a folding-chair. His slightest movements were marked by the inert heaviness, the stupid hesitancy, which characterize the movements of a paralytic. He sat slowly down upon his chair with great caution, mumbling some unintelligible words. His cracked voice resembled the noise made by a stone falling into a well. The young woman nervously pressed ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac

... for some Byzantine traits in your national character and for the formlessness and hesitancy which I, at least, seem to detect in the demeanour of many individual Anglo-Saxons. They realize that their traditional upbringing is opposed to truth. It gives them a sense of insecurity. It makes them shy and awkward. Poise! That is what ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... bond were contrary to public policy and void ab initio. The case is not one for hesitancy; 'tis clear and certain. No court in Christendom would for a moment lend audience to the Jew. Why, to uphold the bond were to license murder. True, the victim hath to this consented; but 'tis doctrine full well proven and determined, ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... condition of affairs in Scotland in the years immediately prior to this event will be instructive. In 1557, as a result of Knox's rebuke of the Scottish nobles for their hesitancy in forwarding the Reformed faith, the "Confederation of the Lords of the Congregation" was formed, and its members subscribed to the first of the five Covenants that played so important a part in the religious history ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... no outward sign of any hesitancy or doubt whatever in the movements of either vessel. The frigate had borne away into our wake the moment that we had borne away, and was now foaming along after us in gallant style, with studding-sails set on both sides, from the royals down; and was of course coming up with us, hand over ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... proved by the discipline of his band that he was not without some talent of generalship. But he owed much of his success to his physical strength, and to the temperament, which never knew the scandal of hesitancy or dread. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... door had closed behind him, Ralph, who had felt all that had passed in that moment of the boy's hesitancy, though he had purposely refrained from looking up, lifted his ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... insist," he added more peremptorily, seeing that Briot—with the hesitancy peculiar to his kind—still made no movement to obey, but stood close by scratching his scanty locks ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... assurance that she loved him and him alone. What these scenes cost Julia's own fine sense of delicacy and dignity, only Julia knew. They left her with a vague feeling of shame, a consciousness of compromise. For a day or two after such an episode a new hesitancy would mark her manner, a certain lack of confidence lend pathos to the sweetness ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... followed she comforted herself with the feeling that she had acted according to her best light. She was a faithful disciple of every cause she espoused, and scrupulously exact in obeying even its implied provisions. In this there was no hesitancy. No matter who was offended, or what sacrifices to herself it involved, the law, the strict letter of the law, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... self-preservation, I do not feel that the hour has yet come that will render it safe for the Government to take that step.' I am willing to believe that something of this kind weighs in the mind of the President and the Cabinet, and that there is some ground for hesitancy as a mere matter of political expediency." This admirable and discriminating support of the President finds another capital illustration in weighty words of his in answer to animadversions of Prof. Francis W. Newman, of England, directed ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... tell me what you think. I know you're a student. I want to talk about my case," pursued the preacher, with a curious hesitancy. "I want to ask a few ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... conduct in command of the Army of the Potomac was seen. But the Rich Mountain affair, when analyzed, shows the same characteristics which became well known later. There was the same over-estimate of the enemy, the same tendency to interpret unfavorably the sights and sounds in front, the same hesitancy to throw in his whole force when he knew that his subordinate was engaged. If Garnett had been as strong as McClellan believed him, he had abundant time and means to overwhelm Morris, who lay four days in easy striking distance, while the National commander delayed attacking Pegram; and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... unexpected question. Themar flushed uncomfortably. Carl had a way of reading between the lines that was exceedingly disconcerting. His information, he said at length after an interval of marked hesitancy, had been too meager. He had listened at the door once when the Baron had spoken of Miss Westfall to his secretary. A housemaid had frightened him away and he had bolted upstairs—to attend to something else while they were both safely occupied. Rather than work blindly as he needs ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... like the ways of every woman, even if she be completely mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or temptation to turn back ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... this not manifest in the divisions of England's counsels, in the hampered progress of her diplomacy, her fateful hesitancy and delay in providing appropriate preventive and protective ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... home-study on the subject of his trade. The experience of many an apprentice was, doubtless, different from this, but surely the mental attitude of the journeymen who were the only teachers must have tended toward some such resulting attitude of doubt or hesitancy in the apprentice. ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth

... understood his courage in some directions and what Thea called his timidity in others, his unspent and miraculously preserved youthfulness. Men could never impose upon the doctor, he guessed, but women always could. Fred liked, too, the doctor's manner with Thea, his bashful admiration and the little hesitancy by which he betrayed his consciousness of the change in her. It was just this change that, at present, interested Fred more than anything else. That, he felt, was his "created value," and it was his best chance for ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... hesitancy, I yielded to a desire to appear in a visible form before an assembled company of Muteite philosophers who were gathered in one of the under-surface halls of architectural ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... country, Wyoming, the writer prides himself on being able to distinguish drinkable water from the salty or alkaline article almost as far as it can be seen, and a stream about which the least suspicion is entertained is invariably tasted with gingerly hesitancy to begin with. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... flinched, and without hesitancy, we all cried out: 'Rather than disown our mother country and become apostates, let exile, let ruin, ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies

... enemy under the floor, and this in spite of the fact that he was given abundant opportunity to examine the floor of the box, but not until after the dangerous nails had been clinched. His long continued avoidance of the experiment boxes and his still more persistent hesitancy in entering them, coupled with his almost ludicrous efforts to see beneath the floor through the holes cut for the staples on the doors, gave me the impression of superstitious fear of the unseen. As I watched and recorded his behavior day after day during the period of most ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... Instead of hesitancy, which Shirley half expected, the girl's face flushed with quickened interest, and her eyes sparkled with enjoyment as he unfolded the situation. At the mention of Grimsby, Holloway grunted with disgust—it ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... doctor's visit. Still, for two days she hesitated to make her call, feeling a strange repugnance towards such a step. For this she could give herself no reasons. It was the doctor himself who inspired her with this hesitancy; one morning she met him, and shrunk from his notice as though she were a child. At this excess of timidity she was much annoyed. Her quiet, upright nature protested against the uneasiness which was taking possession of her. She decided, therefore, to go and ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... beautiful even on heads that have been bald for years, and at the same time restores it to its natural color. The proprietors will mail to anyone who sends name and address, a free trial package of the remedy so that all may test it for themselves. As it is a pure vegetable product you need have no hesitancy in using it freely, as it cannot harm the most tender scalp. Write to-day to the Altenheim Medical Dispensary, 3156 Foso Building, Cincinnati, Ohio, enclosing a 2-cent stamp to cover postage, and they will forward the free trial package ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... the war began, little permanent work has as yet been done. And there are few signs of a radical change for the better. The confusion and incongruousness that mark the ideas of the reformers, and the hesitancy and conflicting interests of politicians make one dubious of the outcome of the present contest. Almost everything essential would appear to be still lacking to the Allies, and the nature of the coming "peace period" is not realized, because the war is looked upon as an isolated phenomenon ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... meals because it may supply too much food value or too much protein. However, if the fact that a high-protein food is to be served at the end of the meal is taken into account when the remainder of the meal is planned, there need be no hesitancy in serving cheese with pie. Of course, when cheese is to be included in the meal in this way, the portions of the protein foods served with the main ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... a book were known, there might be in some regions hesitancy in respect to receiving it, from doubts in regard to its author, as in the case of the epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse; or from the peculiarity of its contents also, as in the case of the latter book. In the influence of causes like ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... not detected the movement, must mean that it was getting nearer and about to spring, so casting all hesitancy to the winds, I raised the gun to my shoulder, and then quite started, for ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... first flush of youth; there was a joining of intellect and soul which approaches the ideal. I can not imagine anything so preposterous as a "proposal" passing between them; I can not conceive a condition of hesitancy and timidity leading up to a dam-bursting "avowal." They met, looked into each other's eyes, and each there read his fate: no coyness, no affectation, no fencing—they loved. Each at once felt a heart-rest in the other. Each had at last ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... he no longer showed any hesitancy as to his course of action; but at once declared his willingness, as well as his determination, to abide by the decision of ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... Claude felt some hesitancy about presenting himself to these ladies. Perhaps they didn't like Americans; he was always afraid of meeting French people who didn't. It was the same way with most of the fellows in his battalion, he had found; they were terribly afraid of being ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... up in the joy of the present. In just what light the maiden regarded him, she made it difficult enough for him to guess. But the interpretation of his own feelings,—this furious throbbing of his heart, the awkward hesitancy of his speech,—was no very difficult matter. When at last he left her, at her mother's door, he made himself an inward promise that this should be the first of many such meetings. And when he reached his own quarters, it was to amaze de Windt by the radiance of his expression and his apparent ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... and who had no immediate duty to perform were standing or seated around the room, but all observing profound silence. For a moment or two no sound was heard but the scratching of the captain's pen. Then, with some embarrassment and hesitancy, he laid it down and ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... I'm going to put him where his queer streak can't get loose and run amuck in my garden." He caught an expression of hesitancy in the policeman's ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... company's cattle from those of its neighbor, a rival company. It was near the end of the day, when I was almost back to camp, that I saw him coming along the road, with the peculiar swing to his shoulders and arms that, once acquired, never leaves the deep-water sailor; so I had no hesitancy in greeting him ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... will, even in this extremity, refuse to jump overboard without their husbands, but in such cases there must be no hesitancy on the part of the men. Do not argue, but push them overboard, and the life belts will hold them in position in the water until the waiting boats can rescue them. There will be no danger of drowning under those conditions, ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward

... have actually known men to hesitate, to ponder, to dodder for weeks, nay, months over the purchase of a book; not because they did not want it, nor because they deemed the price exorbitant, nor yet because they were not abundantly able to pay that price. Their hesitancy was due to an innate, congenital lack of determination—that same hideous curse of vacillation which is responsible for so much misery ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... not say that I should be sorry to have you there," she answered, with the hesitancy of one ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... anathematises all who, through pride or cunning, or personal interest and ambition, or love of novelty, attempt to falsify or to minimise or to distort the teaching of Our Divine Master. Without respect of persons, without regard to temporal consequences, without either hesitancy or ambiguity, he speaks "as one having power" (Matt. vii. 29). And while, on the one hand, every true Catholic throughout the world, who hears his voice, is intimately conscious that he is hearing the voice of Christ Himself, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... in which you could, so far as I know. That was by buying my pet. I—I don't suppose," Hallam continued, with hesitancy, "that there is anything such a—a useless fellow as I could do to earn ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... man of action, a fighter by instinct, and so long accustomed to danger that the excitement of it merely put new fire into his veins. Now that he understood exactly what threatened, all numbing feeling of hesitancy and doubt vanished, and he became instantly alive. He would not lie there in that hole waiting for the formation of a mob; nor would he trust in the ability of ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... in firing no change in sights should be made until the man is sure that his hold was good, and then change without hesitancy. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... 1890, I left for Tuskegee. When I reached there, although I was a young man, I could not tell what county I lived in, in answer to Mr. Washington's question. I was admitted, after some hesitancy on the part of Principal Washington, and sent to the farm to work for one year in the daytime and ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... said Mrs. Frank Garrison, bravely, yet with a trifle less confidence of manner, with indeed a faint symptom of hesitancy, "is Miss Amy Lawrence," and in extending her little hand to take that of the most retiring of the three girls, only the finger tips and thumb seemed to touch. Miss Lawrence came quickly forward, and waiting for no description, bowed with quiet grace and dignity to the chief ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... district," growled the fellow, but I saw that his hesitancy was due to his uncertainty as to whom I really ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... nothing. There was a little thing I noted, however. His hands were trembling, and it was five minutes before he met my inquiring look. This I should not consider worth mentioning if I had not observed the same hesitancy follow the same disappearance up-stairs on the succeeding night. It was the only time in the day when he really left me, and, when he came back, he was not like himself for a good half hour or more. "I will not displease ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... hesitancy in saying that Graustark already idolizes this brave American," said Halfont, warmly. "He has won her affection. If the question is placed before the people to-morrow in proper form, I will vouch for it that the whole nation will ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... did not, there was nothing to fear, for at the utmost he would have had but a few feet to drop, and after a few moments' hesitancy he passed one leg out of the window, took a good grip of the rope, climbed right out, twisted his legs round in turn, and directly after, while swinging gently, he let himself down ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... college, he and his brother, with their young companions, owing to their living by rule, first won the name of "Methodists," amid sneers and persecutions, his mother cheered him on. At that juncture, subsequently, when he was in a state of hesitancy as to entering the holy ministry, and his father had encouraged the idea of delay, his mother said, "The sooner you are a deacon the better"—and broke the spell of what might have been a fatal backwardness. On that evening, at Aldersgate Street, 24th May, 1738, so memorable in the spiritual ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... brought his palms together in great satisfaction; but, to his astonishment, when he looked at Nora he saw hesitancy plainly written in her beautiful face; indeed, there was more than hesitancy; refusal of the offer trembled upon her lips. But this was only for an instant; a sudden rush of excitement seemed to possess her, and she held out her hand to ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... movements were very suggestive, for there was a furtive, peculiar action on the part of the one in front, who was evidently uneasy, and kept on looking behind him and to right and left, as if in search of danger or a way of escape, and in both a peculiar hesitancy that ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... would come too late to change the girl's fate. Yet even now he knew he must not turn back. If the penalty were death, there must be no hesitancy in him; he must not ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... "should he succeed in throwing YOU overboard I should consider you unfit for a job in my employ." (The old fox had not the slightest idea such a contretemps was possible, but in order to play safe he considered it good policy to hearten Ole for the fray.) "Should he defeat you, captain, I have no hesitancy in saying to you now that such a misfortune would have a most disastrous effect on your future in my employ. You know me. When I order a job done, I want it done, and I want it done well. Understand! ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... now for hesitancy; here was my cue, and I must plunge ahead, accepting the chances. I ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... of men never expires, unless forcibly extinguished by women. Be trustful, my Ludovicka, trustful, and pious, and let love, holy and still, ardent and glowing, penetrate your heart, just as I do, without trembling, without hesitancy, and without ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... he, with a little hesitancy over the unfamiliar term, "is well. Cannot you come to see us before that dreadful reception through which I am to be dragged? I'd like you to know Edith in a ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... not credit her hesitancy. It was a deceit, he felt, a bit of theatricalism,—the simulated modesty of a ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... of the lion," said Meriem, noting his slight hesitancy. "There hasn't been a man eater around here for two years, Bwana says, and the game is so plentiful that there is no necessity to drive Numa to human flesh. Then, he has been so often hunted that he rather keeps ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... uncanny for, with all sweetness and hesitancy, revealing him as stiff and unresponsively complacent. It was impossible for him to talk freely with a person uncongenial to him of the things he felt deeply; and, pertinaciously, over her coffee and cigarettes, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... CHIEF-JUSTICE—Gentlemen, I did not think I should have any occasion to speak after your verdict, but finding some hesitancy and doubt among you, I cannot but say I wonder it should come about; for I think in my conscience the evidence was as full, and plain as could be, and if I had been among you, and she had been my own mother, I should have found ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... sacrifice Haugwitz, Beyme, and Lombard to you, and hence you withdraw from the service. You did right, and it makes my heart ache to be compelled to admit it. So long as those three men are here, there will be a policy of continued vacillation and hesitancy, and what you would do one day those three men would annul the next. Oh! the king is so generous, so faithful and modest! He believes in the disinterestedness of Minister von Haugwitz, in his honesty and sagacity; for this reason, he will not altogether give ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... not know the full extent of his plans and were impatient to see the result of their—to them—successful labours. They could not understand this halt, and grumbled under their breath at the strange hesitancy of their young leader. But everything had gone so well under his guidance that none of them dared to express his discontent aloud, and Max was left to put the finishing touch upon his plans ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... Mizora, as you have no doubt observed, never to make domestic affairs a topic of conversation outside of the family, the only ones who would be interested in them; and this refinement has kept you from the solution of our social system. I have no hesitancy in gratifying your wish to comprehend it. The best way to do it is to let history lead up to it, if you have the ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... The days are bright, warm, and clear, and every hour tempts me forth to wander about the hills. It is not spring, but the hesitancy that holds before the season changes; yet each day there are new flowers—not our delicate wood flowers, but larger and coarser of fibre, and it adds a charm to them that I do not know their names. The trees are budding, and here and there, like a wave breaking into ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... when the bridegroom's eyes are uncovered. They are then to converse with each other, and they must not for a moment relax the talk. Neither has any knowledge of the time that this test must continue. There must be no faltering, or hesitancy. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... caught the hesitancy in Miss Alden's speech. Miss Richards had and looked up in time to see another Debby Alden than the Debby she had always known. This Debby had the flush of sixteen years in her cheeks and the tender light ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... refused—unless he will not accept other food than from his bottle—and if you are convinced that he has formed the "bottle habit," then the milk should be put into a tiny cup or glass, and he should learn to sip it along with his solid foods; but if he takes his other foods without any hesitancy, then we know no reason why he should not take his milk in this comfortable manner from his bottle at least two or three ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... in a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly—and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then—somehow there seemed nothing more to be said; each ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... some hesitancy among the American people during the Spanish War. Even the leaders were not ready then. Now the leaders are prepared—for markets, for trade, for investments. They are indifferent to political conquest, but economically they are prepared to go on—into Latin America; into Asia; into Europe. ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... everyone doubts his neighbour. If those who are prepared to support authority can only discover at the right moment one little group round whom they can rally, and who they know will think nothing of death in performance of duty, the danger is over at once. Hesitancy disappears, and the normal is instantly produced. We filed out to find the infantry in their ranks, and the horsemen mounted in line, under ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... accede, secede, recede, impede, precede, concede, antecede, intercede, supersede." Fortunately Ruth, who now kept her eyes upon Miss Cramp's face, spelled carefully and correctly, without any sign of hesitancy. The match went on then, for page after page, without a pupil failing. Perhaps there was hesitation at times, but Miss Cramp gave any deserving ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... administration of alcohol in large doses) disastrously unwise. In some states of society and periods of history, religion is the popular specific; and there have been, and are, forms of religion to which alcohol would be preferable. Fortunately, one can say without a shadow of hesitancy that "the modern religion" lies under no such suspicion. As dispensed by Mr. Wells, it is entirely wholesome. If it is found to cheer, it will certainly not inebriate. Indeed, the doubt one feels as to its popular success lies in the very fact ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... started when his eyes fell upon the ledger. After a moment's hesitancy he remarked: "Never but in one instance have I seen as fine work. That was the writing of my own dear boy; those capitals are ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... you, Mr. Van Berg, and should I ever need the services of a gentleman,"—she laid a slight emphasis upon the term—"I shall, without any hesitancy, turn to you. But I have long since learned to be my own protectress, as, after all, one must be, situated ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... tottering, and, with the exception of the Duke of Modena, the princelings of Italy snatched the plank of safety of a statute with the alacrity of drowning men. In this crisis Charles Albert thought of abdication. Besides the known causes of his hesitancy, there was one then unknown: the formal engagement, invented by Metternich and forced upon him by his uncle Charles Felix, to govern the country as he found it governed. He called the members of the royal family together and informed ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... into regular degrees, which would entitle the recipients to the enjoyment of the privileges attached to these titles. The learned council discussed, hesitated, tried to decide the question, but finally left it in a situation which was neither clear nor conclusive. This hesitancy and vagueness are very significant; a few years ago a negative decision would have been given promptly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... hesitancy these consequences of the abandonment of opium, from the belief that any person really in earnest in his desire to relinquish the habit will be more likely to persevere by knowing at the start exactly what obstacles he may meet in his progress toward perfect recovery, than by having it gradually ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... commended to me by his brethren and by Mrs. Carrington, to enter into missionary work. His name is Chin Kel. I am all the more hopeful about him because he is distrustful of himself. This was the only ground of hesitancy with him. The fact that it involved a very considerable pecuniary sacrifice does not seem to have weighed with him at all. He will be stationed at Marysville, relieving our excellent brother Joe Jet ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various

... not known what he was going to say when he began, and he did not know how he intended to end. He heard with a passionate sense of relief that the door behind them opened, and turned to find that Mrs. Latimer stood upon the threshold as if in hesitancy. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... his hesitancy was due to uncertainty as to where he should write his name, again pointed to ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... The boy thus became well acquainted with many of the animal fables known to the negroes of Georgia. Later in life, he heard a great many more of these tales, while traveling through the cotton states, swapping yarns with the negroes after he had gained their confidence. His knowledge of their hesitancy about telling a story and his sympathy with them made it possible for him to hear rare tales when another would probably have found only silence. Sometimes, while waiting for a train, he would saunter up to a group of negroes and start to tell a story himself and soon have them ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... of what shrubs and trees there were he came without mishap at last to the ornate building concerning the purpose of which he had asked Lu-don only to be put off with the assertion that it was forgotten—nothing strange in itself but given possible importance by the apparent hesitancy of the priest to discuss its use and the impression the ape-man had gained at the time that ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs



Words linked to "Hesitancy" :   unwillingness, involuntariness, slothfulness, diffidence, hesitant, reluctance, sloth, hesitance, self-doubt, hesitate, self-distrust



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