The definition of 'reluctant'
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The definition of 'reluctant'
Hello.
The definition of 'reluctant' is "unwilling and hesitant". I don't understand this definition, since I thought 'unwilling' meant that you refuse to do something. And if you are refusing to do something, how can you be hesitating (since that implies you are considering doing it)?
The definitions of 'unwilling' and 'reluctant' on the Oxford Learner's Dictionary website correspond to my understanding of each of these words:
Unwilling: https://oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/unwilling?q=unwilling
Reluctant: https://oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/reluctant?q=reluctant
And can't you be willing to do something (agreeing to do it) but also be reluctant (having reservations and not wanting to do it)? Like, a parent may reluctantly let their child have a smartphone - reluctant because they don't think it's healthy, but willing because they don't want their child to feel left out.
Am I misunderstanding these words? Or is the definition of 'reluctant' wrong?
Thank you.
Comments
@MitchMacKaye
No. The definition is
The second line makes all the difference.
No, not as I understand the words willing and reluctant.
This brings out the importance of /with infinitive/.
Reluctant to refers forward to something that may or may not be done.
Reluctantly refers back to something that actually was done.
I would never use the word willingly here.
@DavidCrosbie So, 'willing' and 'unwilling' actually refer to what one wants to do rather than to what one will/won't do by volition? I always thought it was just about volition, one's free will. I've heard them used often in reference to actions that people would prefer not to do but will do. Here's an actual example of my "willing but reluctant" idea: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BE3Jqdnj3qgC&pg=PA247&lpg=PA247&dq=willing+albeit+reluctantly&source=bl&ots=9YGNtIhEcg&sig=ACfU3U39h8GNFyEirdiKDHBONFB3LWIrHQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDx7zJkNHiAhVLSxUIHc7AAPkQ6AEwDHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=willing%20albeit%20reluctantly&f=false
If so, why is 'refuse', then, defined as "indicate or show that one is not willing to do something"? That suggests then that somebody might actually do something, but just expressing a desire not to.
Thanks.
I think there must be two separate senses of willingness in actual usage: one being intention/volition of action, and one being what one wishes. I found this example:
"3.6 A small number of employee members who are currently not making any payment have expressed a reluctant willingness to meet the required level of contribution, but this is less than 5% of those I have spoken with."
There's a willingness because they will do it, but a reluctance because they'd much rather not. I think the dictionary fails to account for this distinction.
Thanks.
Your link leads to a page that is unavailable.
On the contrary, it suggests that in their mind there is no possibility that they might actually do it.
(Though it might turn out that they were mistaken, that unforeseen circumstances forced them to do it.)
If you refresh the page, it'll eventually show it, but here's the quote:
"The ruling elite has reacted to this, not just by repression but also by being willing, albeit reluctantly, to contemplate form."
I must not have expressed myself clearly, because I agree with you that it means this. That's why I didn't understand "unwilling and hesitant", because to me "unwilling" suggests a mind made up ("I will not do it") but "hesitant" implies that you're at least considering it.
When I Googled ""willing but reluctant"", I got a lot of results, which suggests that at least some people have the same understanding as I do: 'willing'/'unwilling' (at least in one sense) refers to what one will/will not voluntarily do, regardless of how one feels about it. Willing because done without being forced; reluctant because having reservations/preferring to not do it.
Right, I've worked out what the difference is for me...
@DavidCrosbie Oh, yes. I agree. I just think 'unwilling' (at least to some people) means something stronger than 'reluctant' - that they will not do the action in question, which makes the "unwilling and hesitant" definition of 'reluctant' confusing (if you are intent on not doing something, how could you be hesitating?). Hence, why you can find phrases like "willing but reluctant", "reluctantly willing", etc. in actual writing.
This discussion raises two basic questions about dictionary definitions:
1. What range of senses of a word should be identified?
2. How do you communicate communicate them to a reader?
And before answering either question, there's the even more basic question
3. Whom wants to know?
The OED has straightforward answers:
1. As many as are recorded from all history, including obsolete uses.
2. As precisely as possible.
3. Scholars and language amateurs like you and me.
Mass-readership dictionaries have trickier answers:
1. Common uses in Present day English.
2. A compromise between precision and intelligibility.
3. Native speakers and fluent non-native readers.
There's a significant market known as 'advanced learners' — with different answers:
1. Only the most common uses.
2. Maximum simplicity and clarity.
3. Foreigners for whom bilingual dictionaries are insufficient, but standard dictionaries are too difficult to use.
Book dictionaries are clearly marketed to a distinct group of users. Online dictionaries are put out with no control over who might use them. The reluctant entry you query suffers from being in an online dictionary attempting to satisfy too great a diversity of users.
However, the definition is substantially better than your selective quote suggests:
And More example sentences includes
reluctant converts, reluctant acceptance, reluctant readers, reluctant heroes, reluctant hero
Besides, the tag and hesitant highlights an important distinction.
Both are readily comprehensible to a native-speaker user and not too difficult for an 'advanced learner'.
I'm quite a fan of a rival dictionary: Collins COBUILD targeted specifically at the 'advanced learner' market. Their solution to the communication problem is to abandon the traditional definition format in favour of a description of use.
This sent me back to two old dictionaries of mine aimed at the 'advanced learner'. Neither is the latest edition, but I don't expect there's much difference in approach.
The 1974 edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English has
The 1978 edition of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English has
I don't have a copy of the Cambridge International Dictionary of English now renamed the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary of English but a version of it is available online:
Like the Oxford Online dictionary, it offers more examples of use in sentences — only five, possibly because it's based on a book.
It's notable that all the dictionaries for learners use unwilling as an approximate synonym — with various devices to express the nuances of difference.
By contrast, the OED assumes that readers know and recognise this typical use of reluctant, and therefore give just enough to distinguish it from other uses
This clearly the foundation on which the Oxford Online 'definition' is based
For a mixed readership they add
It's perhaps unfortunate that the description of word-meaning in a dictionary is known as a 'definition'.
Most words are not terms and cannot be defined in the vigorous way that scientists define their terms.
Unless the word is very unusual, readers want to know how a recognised word is used.
Very often they don't even want to know that; they simply want to know the spelling.
The function of a so-called 'definition' is to supply enough information for the reader to recognise that the word is actually the one they want to know about.