- disinclined
- disinclined adj Disinclined, indisposed, hesitant, reluctant, loath, averse mean manifesting neither the will nor the desire to do or to have anything to do with something indicated or understood.Disinclined implies a lack of taste or inclination for something for which one has no natural bent or which meets one's disapproval{
I should not be disinclined to go to London, did I know anybody there— Richardson
}{disinclined to come to real grips with the vexed question of public control in industry— Cohen
}{he was preoccupied and disinclined for sociability
}Indisposed implies an unfavorable or often a hostile or unsympathetic attitude{unfit to rule and indisposed to please— Crabbe
}{indisposed to take part in the feasting and dancing— Hardy
}Hesitant suggests a holding back through fear, distaste, uncertainty, or irresolution{she was hesitant to accept the invitation
}{hesitant in seeking advice
}{a hesitant suitor
}{hesitant about spending the money required to build an experimental plant— Griffin
}Reluctant adds to hesitant a definite resistance or sense of unwillingness{I was simply persuading a frightened and reluctant girl to do the straight and decent and difficult thing— Rose Macaulay
}{people were reluctant to charge a dead man with an offense from which he could not clear himself— Whartony
}{reluctant to expose those silent and beautiful places to vulgar curiosity— Cather
}Reluctant is also applied directly to the thing which is done reluctantly or to a thing which seems reluctant{the constant strain of bringing back a reluctant and bored attention— Russell
}{they wring from reluctant soil food enough to keep . . . alive— Repplier
}Loath stresses the lack of harmony between something one anticipates doing and his likes or dislikes, tastes or distastes, or sympathies or antipathies; thus, a tender person may be loath to punish a refractory child but a strict disciplinarian would be loath to allow that child to go unpunished; one may be loath to believe a well-founded report that discredits a friend and equally loath to disbelieve a rumor that confirms his bad opinion of a person{loath to publish translations of anything except our surefire sex-and-mayhem fiction— Whyte
}Averse suggests a turning away from something distasteful or repugnant{averse to all advice
}{his impulses were generous, trustful, averse from cruelty— J. R. Green
}Analogous words: *antipathetic, unsympathetic: opposing, resisting (see RESIST): balking, shying, boggling, sticking, stickling (see DEMUR): objecting, protesting (see OBJECT vb)
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
