UNWILLINGNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does unwillingness mean? 

• UNWILLINGNESS (noun)
  The noun UNWILLINGNESS has 1 sense:

1. the trait of being unwilling

  Familiarity information: UNWILLINGNESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNWILLINGNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The trait of being unwilling

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

involuntariness; unwillingness

Context example:

in spite of our warnings he plowed ahead with the involuntariness of an automaton

Hypernyms ("unwillingness" is a kind of...):

disposition; temperament (your usual mood)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "unwillingness"):

disinclination; hesitancy; hesitation; indisposition; reluctance (a certain degree of unwillingness)

resistance ((psychiatry) an unwillingness to bring repressed feelings into conscious awareness)

Antonym:

willingness (cheerful compliance)

Derivation:

unwilling (in spite of contrary volition)

unwilling (not disposed or inclined toward)

 Context examples 

Why else should he have shewn such unwillingness to accept your invitation here?

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Could there be any unwillingness on the general's side to show her over the abbey?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

My return had only been delayed so long, from an unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become acquainted with any of its inhabitants.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected mother's permission for this address.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I shall never forget with what unwillingness Glumdalclitch consented, nor the strict charge she gave the page to be careful of me, bursting at the same time into a flood of tears, as if she had some forboding of what was to happen.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I heard enough of what she said to you last night to understand her unwillingness to be acting with a stranger; and as she probably engaged in the part with different expectations—perhaps without considering the subject enough to know what was likely to be—it would be ungenerous, it would be really wrong to expose her to it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Her unwillingness to quit her mother was her only restorative to calmness; and at the moment of parting her grief on that score was excessive.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He left the room, and Catherine, with a disappointed, anxious face, began to speak of her unwillingness that he should be taking them out of doors against his own inclination, under a mistaken idea of pleasing her; but she was stopped by Miss Tilney's saying, with a little confusion, I believe it will be wisest to take the morning while it is so fine; and do not be uneasy on my father's account; he always walks out at this time of day.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. Churchill was unwell—far too unwell to do without him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband) when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle, and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)