RELUCTANCE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Reluctance

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/rɪlˈəktəns/ /rilˈəktəns/ Listen

noun

Reluctancy, Reluctance n.

The state or quality of being reluctant; repugnance; aversion of mind; unwillingness; often followed by an infinitive, or by to and a noun, formerly sometimes by against. "Tempering the severity of his looks with a reluctance to the action."

Synonyms: Syn. See Dislike. "He had some reluctance to obey the summons." "Bear witness, Heaven, with what reluctancy Her helpless innocence I doom to die."

(Elec.) Magnetic resistance, being equal to the ratio of magnetomotive force to magnetic flux.

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Etymology of 'Reluctance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Reluctance" Quotes from Famous Books

... granting of leave by two days. It would be tedious to record all the little and big difficulties that were then encountered through the reluctance of the military authorities to allow one to get transport or help of any kind. But four days later I was marching out of Mustapha Pasha on the way to Kirk Kilisse by way of Adrianople, a bullock-wagon carrying my baggage, an interpreter trundling my bicycle, I riding a small pony. ...

— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... to permit shortening and lightening the gun. Mueller's guns had no heavy reinforces; the metal was distributed along the bore in a taper from powder chamber to muzzle swell. But realizing man's reluctance to accept new things, he carefully specified the location and size for each molding on his gun, protesting all the while the futility of such ornaments. Not until the last half of the next century were the experts well ...

— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... inspired as one man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and ...

— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... cool voice and with a calm face. I think there must even then have been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came out of the back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked oddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood leaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goods and go. I asked about the business, and learnt that trade was bad and the profits cut down sadly; but then the street was not what it was before traffic had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago, 'just before my father died,' he said. I got away at last, ...

— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... it difficult to say what distress the sudden removal of this amiable and accomplished Scholar occasions me, just as I am finishing my task. I consign these pages to the press with a sense of downright reluctance,—(constrained however by the importance of the subject,)—seeing that he is no longer among us either to accept or to dispute a single proposition. All I can do is to erase every word which might have occasioned him the least annoyance; and indeed, as seldom as possible ...

— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

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