ambivalent
Americanadjective
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having mixed feelings about someone or something; being unable to choose between two (usually opposing) courses of action.
The whole family was ambivalent about the move to the suburbs.
She is regarded as a morally ambivalent character in the play.
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Psychology. of or relating to the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same person, object, or action, simultaneously drawing that individual in opposite directions.
Other Word Forms
- ambivalently adverb
Etymology
Origin of ambivalent
Back formation from ambivalence
Explanation
If you can't decide how you feel about something, declare yourself ambivalent about it. Ambivalent means "having mixed feelings about something." A Swiss psychologist named Eugen Bleuler coined the German word Ambivalenz in the early twentieth century, and it was soon imported into English. Bleuler combined the Latin prefix ambi-, meaning "both," with valentia, "strength." So etymologically speaking, if you're ambivalent you're being pulled by two equally strong things — but in practice, ambivalence often arises from caring very little either way. You might feel ambivalent about your lunch options if you have to choose between a murky stew and flavorless tofu.
Vocabulary lists containing ambivalent
100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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Grade 11, List 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The other students might not be as truculent as Elham, but they are just as ambivalent about the necessity of learning English.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2026
North Carolina resident Shelley Hughes was more ambivalent.
From Barron's • Mar. 20, 2026
Partly as a result of the moral quandaries, Mr. Solomon finishes his book far more ambivalent about colonizing Mars than he was at the outset.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 19, 2026
Yet, even at the height of fame, he chooses to remain on the margins of celebrity culture, visibly ambivalent about his own success.
From BBC • Jan. 28, 2026
Although McCandless was enough of a realist to know that hunting game was an unavoidable component of living off the land, he had always been ambivalent about killing animals.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
