Unwillingness

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The property of being unwilling. countable, uncountable

    "In the second extract, the teacher formulated Anna's resistance as reported by Tonie as a prewillingness rather than unwillingness. She constructed Anna's prewillingness as founded in her precompetence, rather than incompetence."

  2. 2
    the trait of being unwilling wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abnegationantipathyaversenessaversioncompunctiondeclension

Example

More examples

"Tom's unwillingness to help surprised Mary."

Etymology

From unwilling + -ness.

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