Ambivalent
Definition, Meaning & Examples
Pronunciation /æmˈbɪv.ə.lənt/ · Part of speech adjective
Quick meaning: Ambivalent is an adjective meaning Simultaneously experiencing or expressing opposing or contradictory feelings, beliefs, motivations, or meanings.
Meaning
Simultaneously experiencing or expressing opposing or contradictory feelings, beliefs, motivations, or meanings.
More Meanings
- Alternately being or having one opinion or feeling, and then the opposite.
Example Sentences
His feelings toward his parents are ambivalent.
In modern burlesque [...] sexual and erotic stimuli are often present in concealed and ambivalent doubles entendres.
The great sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued that philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism both fall under “allosemitism”: literally Othering the Jew. He defined it not as resentment of what is different, which is xenophobia, but rather of what defies order and clear categories. In 1997, he wrote, “The Jew is ambivalence incarnate. And ambivalence is ambivalence mostly because it cannot be contemplated without ambivalent feeling: it is simultaneously attractive and repelling.”
Synonyms for ambivalent
Depending on context, synonyms include conflicted, uncertain, undecided, unresolved, vacillating, fluctuating.
Related Words
Related dictionary entries include equivocal, ambiguous, uncertain, unsure, incertain, conflicting.
Related Dictionary Tools
Sources & Attribution
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.