HESITATING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hesitating mean? 

• HESITATING (adjective)
  The adjective HESITATING has 1 sense:

1. lacking decisiveness of character; unable to act or decide quickly or firmly

  Familiarity information: HESITATING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HESITATING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lacking decisiveness of character; unable to act or decide quickly or firmly

Synonyms:

hesitant; hesitating

Similar:

indecisive (characterized by lack of decision and firmness)

 Context examples 

He inquired how far Netherfield was from Meryton; and, after receiving her answer, asked in a hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“Why, you see, Mas'r Davy,” he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, “Em'ly, she's talking to some 'un in here.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“Well—if you please,” said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, “if you think she will be of any use.”

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

In any other circumstances it would have been comical to see his slow advance, hesitating as he set down each foot, but holding his closed right hand in front of him.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He’d had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"It's so early! You can't mean to go yet?" began Jo, looking relieved but hesitating to accept the offer.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She delayed to speak, and at last she spoke haltingly, hesitating to frame in words the harshness of her thought.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The landlord was hesitating whether to carry this message or no, when the door of the inner room was flung open, and the stranger bounded out like a panther from its den, his hair bristling and his deformed face convulsed with anger.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When Peggotty spoke of what she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as look at Steerforth, hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)