Word.ws English Dictionary

reluctant

/ɹɪˈlʌktənt/

reluctant adjective: not wanting to take some action; unwilling to do something.

Adjective

reluctant (comparative more reluctant, superlative most reluctant)

  1. Not wanting to take some action; unwilling to do something.
    • She was reluctant to lend him the money
    • Surprisingly, our new dog is a reluctant ball-retriever.
  2. (archaic) Contrary; defiant; refractory.
    • Whence we must infer, that the least stir of tumult or rebellion against the Prince is reluctant to all the Ordinances of Heaven, is an abortive product of Hell against the pure dictates of nature […]1683 September 9, A Sermon of Thanksgiving for the Happy Delivery of Charles the Second […] Preached […] in Thomas-Town in the County of Kilkenny, published 1683, page 4
    • If pride be allowed to cause you to envy or wound the characters of such as differ from, or outshine you, or to make you reluctant to Christian reproof from your inferiors, how fearful is your guilt and danger!1782, John Brown, “Address to Students of Divinity”, in A Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion, page xiv
  3. (regular expressions) Tending to match as little text as possible.
    Antonyms:
    greedy

reluctant meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

reluctant in Tamil

தயக்கத்துடன், விருப்பமின்றி

reluctant in Urdu

اڑیل, مزاحم, ناراض, ضدی

reluctant in Bengali

অনিচ্ছুক, নারাজ

reluctant in Malayalam

മനസ്സില്ലാത്ത, വൈമനസ്യമുളള, ഇഷ്ടക്കേടുളള
More languagesFewer languages
reluctant in Kannada
ಇಷ್ಟವಿಲ್ಲದ, ಒಗ್ಗದ, ಮನಸ್ಸಿಲ್ಲದ, ಇಚ್ಛೆಯಿಲ್ಲದ
reluctant in Indonesian
enggan
reluctant in Persian
بیمیل bi-meyl
reluctant in Vietnamese
miễn cưỡng

Examples of reluctant in a sentence

  • They are reluctant to the inclusion of a necessity test, especially of a horizontal nature, and emphasize, instead, the importance of procedural disciplines [...].2008, Kern Alexander et al., The World Trade Organization and Trade in Services, page 222:
  • That’s probably because you appear as someone who rarely puts himself forward, and is reluctant to teach the wisdom he has.2010, Plato, “Euthyphro”, in Christopher Rowe, transl., The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin Books Ltd., →ISBN, line 3d:
  • The difference between Ukrainian refugees and other reluctant exiles is that Ukrainians are desperate to return.2024 September 4, Vitali Vitaliev, “A salute to Ukraine's 'Second Army'”, in RAIL, number 1017, page 49:
  • There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung / Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, / From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, / Should suck him back to her insatiate grave [...].1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto II, stanza 108:

All 40 example sentences with reluctant

Synonyms of reluctant

Antonyms

Forms of reluctant

comparativemore reluctant
superlativemost reluctant

Origin of reluctant

Learned borrowing from Latin reluctāns (whence -ant), present participle of reluctor (“to struggle against, oppose, resist”), from re- (“back”) + luctor (“to struggle”) (whence re-.

Words formed from reluctant

Phrases with reluctant

Questions about reluctant

What does reluctant mean?
Reluctant means not wanting to take some action; unwilling to do something.
What is reluctant in Tamil?
Reluctant in Tamil is தயக்கத்துடன், விருப்பமின்றி. See Reluctant meaning in Tamil.
How do you use reluctant in a sentence?
They are reluctant to the inclusion of a necessity test, especially of a horizontal nature, and emphasize, instead, the importance of procedural disciplines [...].
What part of speech is reluctant?
Reluctant is an adjective.
How do you pronounce reluctant?
Reluctant is pronounced /ɹɪˈlʌktənt/.

Words near reluctant in the dictionary

  1. reluctance motor
  2. reluctance motors
  3. reluctances
  4. reluctancies
  5. reluctancy
  6. reluctant
  7. reluctant dragon
  8. reluctant dragons
  9. reluctantly
  10. reluctate
  11. reluctated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reluctant (page history and authors); reluctant (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); reluctant (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Reluctant (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); reluctant (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); reluctant (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-reluctant.ogg.

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