Definitions

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

  • adjective Exhibiting or feeling ambivalence.

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

  • adjective undecided as to whether or not to take a proposed course of action; having feelings both for and against the proposed action.

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

  • adjective Simultaneously experiencing or expressing opposing or contradictory feelings, beliefs, or motivations.
  • adjective Alternately having one opinion or feeling, and then the opposite.

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

  • adjective uncertain or unable to decide about what course to follow

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From ambivalence, from German Ambivalenz, from Latin ambi- ("in two ways") + valeō ("be strong")

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Examples

Comments

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  • I'm ambivalent about the whole thing. I'ts all ambivalence, now, right? Grey areas. Morality reduced to approximations. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan

    February 26, 2012

  • an emotional seesaw of indifferance

    October 7, 2012

  • mixed or conflicting emotions about something

    Sam was ambivalent about studying for the exam because doing so ate up a lot of his time, yet he was able to improve his analytical skills.

    October 11, 2016