• hæsitate(archaic)

Borrowed fromLatinhaesitātus,perfect passive participle ofhaesitō (see-ate(verb-forming suffix)), intensive ofhaereō(“to hesitate, stick fast; to hang or hold fast”). Displaced nativeOld Englishwandian. CompareFrenchhésiter.

• (UK)IPA^(key):/ˈhɛz.ɪ.teɪt/

  • Audio(Southern England):

    (file)

• (US)IPA^(key):/ˈhɛz.ə.teɪt/
• (General Australian)IPA^(key):/ˈhez.ə.tæɪt/

hesitate (third-person singular simple presenthesitates,present participlehesitating,simple past and past participlehesitated)

1. (intransitive) To stop or pauserespectingdecision or action; to be insuspense oruncertainty as to adetermination.

   Hehesitated whether to accept the offer or not; men oftenhesitate in forming a judgment.

   • September 1, 1742,Alexander Pope,letter to Racine

     I shall nothesitate to declare myself very cordially, in regard to some particulars about which you have desired an answer.

2. (intransitive) To stammer; to falter in speaking.
3. (transitive,poetic,rare) To utter with hesitation or to intimate by a reluctant manner.
   • a.1724,Alexander Pope,The Ms. at Longleat:

     Just hint a fault, andhesitate dislike.

• This is acatenative verb that takes theto infinitive. SeeAppendix:English catenative verbs

• (to stop respecting decision or action):demur,falter,mammer,scruple,waver; see alsoThesaurus:hesitate
• (to falter in speaking):balbucinate,balbutiate,falter,hem,haw,stammer,stutter
• (to utter with hesitation):falter

• hesitant
• hesitation

• “hesitate”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney,Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “hesitate”, inThe Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.:The Century Co.,→OCLC.
• “hesitate”, inOneLook Dictionary Search.

• athetise,hatesite

hesitate

1. second-personsingular voseoimperative ofhesitar combined withte