Reluctance

//ɹɪˈlʌktəns// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Unwillingness to do something. countable, uncountable

    "Our new dog shows reluctance to go on walks, preferring to be indoors."

  2. 2
    a certain degree of unwillingness wordnet
  3. 3
    Hesitancy in taking some action. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    (physics) opposition to magnetic flux (analogous to electric resistance) wordnet
  5. 5
    Defiance, disobedience. archaic, countable, uncountable

    "No more be mention’d then of violence / Against our selves, and wilful barrenness, / That cuts us off fom hope, and favours onely / Rancor and pride, impatience and despite, / Reluctance against God and his just yoke / Laid on our Necks."

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  1. 6
    That property of a magnetic circuit analogous to resistance in an electric circuit. countable, uncountable

    "That is to say, the total number of ampere-hours, including the drop of gilbertage, due to magnetic flux traversing the reluctance of the circuit, must be equal to zero."

Synonyms

All synonyms
antipathyaversenessaversionbackwardnesscapacitive reactancecautiousness

Example

More examples

"We noticed his reluctance to testify."

Etymology

From reluct + -ance.

Related phrases

reluctance cartridgereluctance motorelectric circuitmagnetic circuit

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.