Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Unwilling; disinclined.
  • adjective Exhibiting or marked by unwillingness.
  • adjective Archaic Offering resistance; opposing.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Striving against some opposing force; struggling or resisting.
  • Struggling against some requirement, demand, or duty; unwilling; acting with repugnance; loath; as, he was very reluctant to go.
  • Proceeding from an unwilling mind; granted with unwillingness: as, reluctant obedience.
  • Not readily brought to any specified behavior or action.
  • Synonyms Averse, Reluctant (see averse), disinclined, opposed, backward, slow.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Striving against; opposed in desire; unwilling; disinclined; loth.
  • adjective Proceeding from an unwilling mind; granted with reluctance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Opposing; offering resistance (to).
  • adjective Not wanting to take some action; unwilling.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective unwillingness to do something contrary to your custom
  • adjective not eager
  • adjective disinclined to become involved

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin reluctāns, reluctant-, present participle of reluctārī, to reluct; see reluct.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin reluctans, present participle of reluctare, reluctari ("to struggle against, oppose, resist"), from re- ("back") + luctari ("to struggle").

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