Hesitant

How to spell hesitant

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce hesitant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hesitant mean?

1. adjectiveSlow to act or speak because of uncertainty, reluctance, or doubt.

Hesitant in a sentence

• The buyer seemed hesitant about signing the contract without legal advice.

• Investors were hesitant to put money into a market that kept swinging wildly.

Where does hesitant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb haesitare, which meant 'to stick fast', 'to stammer', or 'to be undecided'. That verb was itself a frequentative of haerere, meaning 'to cling' or 'to be stuck', so the underlying image is of someone whose words or movements get caught and held back. The sense moved naturally from physical sticking to mental wavering, since a person who cannot decide seems to stall in place. English took the adjective in during the early 1600s, alongside the verb 'hesitate', both built on the same Latin stem. The everyday spelling trap is the unstressed middle vowel, written with an 'i' (hes-I-tant) even though the ear hears a faint schwa, and the ending is the Latinate '-ant' rather than '-ent'.

How the word is built

• hesit- (from Latin haesitare: to stick fast, to be undecided)
• -ant (adjective suffix meaning 'doing or being')