Other forms: hesitations
Hesitation is a pause caused by doubt about what to do. A half-second, and everybody notices it.
It takes about or in. The word is very often used in the negative, since having no hesitation in recommending somebody is one of the warmest things a reference can say. Music has hesitation as a deliberate device. Radio panel games have made not hesitating into a rule of their own. The verb hesitate appears in the standard polite formula do not hesitate to get in touch.
1nounhesitationA pause before acting, caused by uncertainty.
“After a moment's hesitation she knocked.”
Hesitation was stammering. Latin haesitātiō covered the pause and the stumble in speech alike, so hesitating was as much a matter of the tongue as of the mind.
Latin
haesitātiō
English, today
hesitation
Built from
Borrowed from Latin haesitātiō. From Latin haesitātiōnem, accusative singular of haesitātiō (“hesitating, stammering”), from haesitō (“hesitate”). Displaced native ġewand.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA