Word.ws English Dictionary

mixed feelings

mixed feelings noun: sentiments or opinions regarding a person, situation, or other matter which are conflicted and cause perplexity or confusion.

Noun

mixed feelings pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only, set phrase) Sentiments or opinions regarding a person, situation, or other matter which are conflicted and cause perplexity or confusion.
    • I, for one, regarded this master-at-arms with mixed feelings of detestation, pity, admiration, and something opposed to enmity.1850, Herman Melville, chapter 44, in White Jacket
    • [A]ll Sabbath observances, like a Scottish accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and the reverse.1903, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 2, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
    Synonyms:
    mixed emotions

Examples of mixed feelings in a sentence

  • Arriving at Paddington, Mike stood on the platform, waiting for his box to emerge from the luggage-van, with mixed feelings of gloom and excitement.1910, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 3, in Psmith in the City:
  • Last week Madison (pop. 67,500) learned, with mixed feelings, that it would get a morning paper and lose an afternoon one.1948 November 29, “The Press: The Rivals”, in Time, retrieved 29 Dec 2017:

Synonyms of mixed feelings

  • mixed emotions

Questions about mixed feelings

What does mixed feelings mean?
Mixed feelings means sentiments or opinions regarding a person, situation, or other matter which are conflicted and cause perplexity or confusion.
How do you use mixed feelings in a sentence?
Arriving at Paddington, Mike stood on the platform, waiting for his box to emerge from the luggage-van, with mixed feelings of gloom and excitement.
What part of speech is mixed feelings?
Mixed feelings is a noun.

Words near mixed feelings in the dictionary

  1. mixed drinks
  2. mixed economic
  3. mixed economies
  4. mixed economy
  5. mixed farming
  6. mixed feelings
  7. mixed foursome
  8. mixed foursomes
  9. mixed fraction
  10. mixed fractions
  11. mixed gauge

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mixed feelings (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “mixed feelings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mixed_feelings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.