Hesitancy

Definitions: Hesitancy

Hesitancy

Noun

1. A feeling of diffidence about doing something.

2. A certain degree of unwillingness; "a reluctance to commit himself"; "after some hesitation he agreed".

Date "hesitancy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1830. (references)

Etymology: Hesitancy \Hes"i*tan*cy\, noun. [Latin expression haesitantia stammering.]. (Websters 1913)

Synonyms: Hesitancy

Synonyms: disinclination (n), hesitance (n), hesitation (n), indisposition (n), reluctance (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Irresolution	Noun: irresolution, infirmity of purpose, indecision; indetermination, undetermination; unsettlement; uncertainty; demur, suspense; hesitating; Verb:, hesitation, hesitancy; vacillation; changeableness; fluctuation; alternation; (oscillation); caprice.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Hesitancy

English words defined with "hesitancy": urinary hesitancy. (references)

Specialty definitions using "hesitancy": bovine spongiform encephalopathy ♦ cow madness ♦ Eve. (references)

Domain	Title
Books	Ideological hesitancy in Spain, 1700-1750 (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Play	Caption
	Suspense; anxiety; apprehension; chiller; cliff-hanger; expectancy; expectation; grabber; hesitancy; hesitation; impatience; indecision; indecisiveness; insecurity; irresolution; page-turner; perplexity; potboiler; tension; thriller; uncertainty; tense; i.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Business		Among the challenges facing companies in this sector is the hesitancy on the part of the Japanese medical establishment to aggressively promote at-home healthcare options. (references)
Trade	Senegal	The system is characterized by the overliquidity of banks and their hesitancy to lend at medium and long term. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

"Hesitancy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Hesitancy" is used about 72 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	72	39,377

Expression using "hesitancy": urinary hesitancy. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "hesitancy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		hezitim (hesitance, hesitation, wavering), pavendosmëri (hesitance, hesitation, indecision, irresolution, vacillation), ngurrim (demur, dither, falter, fluctuation, hesitance, hesitation, reluctance, reserve, shilly shally), mëdyshje (hesitance, hesitation, puzzle, quandary, vacillating), lëkundje (backlash, dancing, fluctuation, hesitance, hesitation, jarring, jolting, nutation, oscillation, pitch, quake, reel, rolling, shake, shaking, shilly shally, shimmy, stagger, sway, swing, swinging, teeter, thrill, tossing, tremor, vacillation, vibrancy, vibration, wabble, wavering, wobble), dyshim (distrust, doubt, dubiety, hesitance, hesitation, misgiving, qualm, query, suspicion, suspiciousness). (various references)

Arabic		‏حيرة (bewilderment, confusion, discomfiture, disconcertion, dismay, distraction, embarrassment, hesitance, indecision, irresolution, maze, mystification, nonplus, perplexedly, perplexity, puzzle, puzzlement, tangle), ‏تردد (ambivalence, backwards, balance, be in two minds, boggle, crane, demur, difficulty, dither, fainting, falter, flicker, float, fluctuate, fluctuation, hang, haunt, hesitance, hesitate, hesitation, hover, hum and haw, indecision, irresolution, pause, perplexity, puzzle over, reticence, reverberate, scruple, shilly shally, sound, stick, stop, stumble, tergiversation, timidity, vacillate, vacillation, vibrate, vibration, waver, wobble, worry). (various references)

Bulgarian		колебание (demur, dubiety, falter, faltering, fluctuation, hesitance, hesitation, hovel, indecision, oscillation, qualm, quandary, scruple, vacillation, variation, wabble, wavering, wobble), заекване (hesitance, stammer, stutter). (various references)

Czech		váhavost (hesitance, hesitation, indecision, irresolution). (various references)

Dutch		aarzeling van de markt (hesitancy of the market). (various references)

Farsi		تردید (Doubt, Hang, Indecision, Qualm, Query, Scruple, Skepticism, Suspicion, Uncertainty, Vibration), دودلی (Doubt, Indecision). (various references)

Finnish		epäröiminen (hesitation, indecision, indetermination, wavering). (various references)

French		hésitation (hesitance, hesitation), indécision. (various references)

German		unschlüssigkeit (hesitance, hesitation, indecision, irresoluteness, irresolution, vacillation). (various references)

Greek		δισταγμόσ (demur, hesitance, hesitation, indecision, qualm, scruple). (various references)

Hebrew		פקפוק (doubt, hesitation, misgiving, vacillation), פסח� ות (vacillation, wavering), חיש� ות (timidity), �"סס� ות (hesitance, indecision, timidity). (various references)

Hungarian		habozás (demur, hesitance, hesitation, indecision, irresolution, oscillation, shilly-shally, staggering, wobble). (various references)

Indonesian		keragu-raguan (dubitation, hesitation, irresolution). (various references)

Italian		esitazione (demur, haw, hesitance, hesitation, qualm, shilly shally). (various references)

Manx		moandys (bluntness, dullness, impediment of speech), moandid (bluntness, dullness, impediment of speech, inarticulate, inarticulateness, slur), leaystaght. (various references)

Pig Latin		esitancyhay

Portuguese		hesitação (backwardness, boggle, doubt, flinch, hesitance, hesitation, indecisive, perquisite, scruple, shilly shally, teeter, wabble, waver, wavering, wobble), irresolução (demur, hesitant, infix, irresolution, shilly shally, wavering). (various references)

Romanian		ezitare (demur, hesitance, hesitation, hover, indecision, pause, poise, stagger, stumble, vacillation, wavering, wobble), şovãire (chops and changes, hesitance, hesitation, irresolution, stagger, stumble, wavering). (various references)

Russian		колебание (backing and filling, demur, fluctuation, hesitance, hesitation, indecision, irresolution, jarring, oscillation, reel, swing, teeter, vacillation, wave). (various references)

Scottish		agadh (hesitancy in speech). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		neodlučnost (hesitance, indecision, irresolution, shakiness, shilly shally), kolebljivost (hesitance). (various references)

Spanish		vacilación (boggle, dillydallying, flickering, hesitance, hesitation, oscillation, vacillation, wavering). (various references)

Swedish		villrådighet (hesitance, hesitation, indetermination, irresolution), tvekan (dubiety, dubitation, hesitance, hesitation, indecision, pause, shilly shally, uncertainty, vacillation). (various references)

Thai		ความลังเลใจ. (various references)

Turkish		tereddüd (demur, doubt, fluctuation, hesitance, hesitation, incertitude, indecision, indeterminate, irresolution, oscillation, pause, perplexity, puzzle, quandary, shilly shally, suspense, uncertainty, vacillation, vibration, wobble), kararsızlık (changeability, dither, doubt, doubtfulness, dubiousness, fickleness, flightiness, fluctuation, haziness, hesitance, incertitude, inconsistency, indecision, indeterminate, infirmity, infirmity of purpose, instability, irresolution, looseness, oscillation, quandary, shilly shally, suspense, uncertainty, unsteadiness, vacillation, variability), duraksama (baulk, demur, halt, hesitance, hesitation, hobble, stop). (various references)

Ukranian		сумнів (challenge, demur, doubt, dubiety, hesitance, impeachment, misdoubt, offence, offense, qualm, query, question, scruple), вагання (boggle, demur, embarrassment, hesitance, hesitation, oscillation, poise, waver, wavering), нерішучість (backwardness, doubtfulness, embarrassment, fluctuation, hesitance, hesitation, indecision, irresolution, pause, shilly shally, weakness). (various references)

Vietnamese		sự tự do (abandon, abandonment, freedom, hesitance), sự ngập ngừng (hesitance), sự lưỡng lự (demur, doubt, doubtfulness, dubitation, hesitance, incertitude, irresolution, shilly-shally, swither, wabble, wobble). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Misspellings
	"Hesitancy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Haitinck. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "hesitancy" (pronounced he"zutunsē)
6	-u t u n s ē	competency, incompetency, militancy.
5	-t u n s ē	accountancy, consistency, constancy, consultancy, expectancy, inconsistency, inconstancy, latency, potency.
4	-u n s ē	absorbency, agency, ascendancy, ascendency, buoyancy, clemency, cogency, complacency, Conservancy, constituency, contingency, counterinsurgency, currency, decency, deficiency, delinquency, dependency, despondency, discrepancy, dormancy, efficiency, emergency, equivalency, excellency, exigency, expediency, fluency, frequency, immunodeficiency, incumbency, indecency, inefficiency, infancy, infrequency, insolvency, insurgency, interagency, irrelevancy, leniency, malignancy, nonemergency, occupancy, poignancy, pregnancy, presidency, proficiency, redundancy, regency, relevancy, residency, resiliency, solvency, stridency, stringency, sufficiency, tenancy, tendency, transparency, truancy, urgency, vacancy, vagrancy, vibrancy.
3	-n s ē	bouncy, chancy, deviancy, fancy, fiancee, mincy, Nancy, necromancy, teensy.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-c-e-h-i-n-s-t-y"
	-1 letter: asthenic, chanteys, chanties, cyanites.
	-2 letters: acetins, achiest, aitches, astheny, chaines, chantey, chasten, cineast, cyanite, cystein, cystine, ethnics, hyaenic, shantey, sheitan, snatchy, stenchy, sthenia, sthenic.
	-3 letters: acetin, actins, antics, ascent, canthi, casein, centai, centas, chaine, chains, chaise, chants, chanty, chaste, cheats, chesty, chinas, chines, chints, enacts, enatic, encash, encyst, ethics, ethnic, hances, hasten, hyenas.
	Words containing the letters "a-c-e-h-i-n-s-t-y"
	+1 letter: myasthenic, thylacines.
	+2 letters: myasthenics.
	+3 letters: antihysteric, chatoyancies, thiocyanates, unhysterical.
	+4 letters: amphictyonies, antihysterics, lycanthropies, metaphysician, nonhysterical, parasynthetic, psychasthenia, psychasthenic, synthetically, unsympathetic.
	+5 letters: acetylcholines, anesthetically, cholestyramine, hedonistically, hypothecations, metaphysicians, psychasthenias, psychasthenics, thermodynamics, unhysterically.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.