reluctant

From Latin reluctans, present participle of reluctare, reluctari (“to struggle against, oppose, resist”), from re- (“back”) + luctari (“to struggle”).

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈlʌktənt/

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reluctant (comparative more reluctant, superlative most reluctant)

1. (now rare) Opposing; offering resistance (to).
   • 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, II.108:

     There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung / Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, / From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, / Should suck him back to her insatiate grave [...].

   • 2008, Kern Alexander et al., The World Trade Organization and Trade in Services, p. 222:

     They are reluctant to the inclusion of a necessity test, especially of a horizontal nature, and emphasize, instead, the importance of procedural disciplines [...].

2. Not wanting to take some action; unwilling.

   She was reluctant to lend him the money

• unwilling, disinclined

• reluctance
• reluctantly

• reluctant in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• reluctant in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• reluctant at OneLook Dictionary Search

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