hesitantly

From hesitant +‎ -ly.

hesitantly (comparative more hesitantly, superlative most hesitantly)

1. With hesitation.
   • 2013, Michael Craft, Boy Toy, →ISBN:

     The sounds from Barb's clarinet began to take the shape of a melody, played quietly at first, hesitantly, with a misblown note here and there.

   • 2006 December, Michael Lang, “Globalization and Its History”, in The Journal of Modern History, vol. 78, no. 4, page 924:

     It approaches irrefusably, hesitantly, terrible as fate, the great task and question: how shall the earth as a whole be managed? (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1885)

   • 1988, Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Шо́лохов (Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov), Quiet flows the Don (translated), volume 1, page 96:

     Grigory hesitantly took her in his arms to kiss her, but she held him off, bent supply backwards and shot a frightened glance at the windows.
     'They'll see!'
     'Let them!'
     'I'd be ashamed—'

   • 2019 April 15, J Oliver Conroy, “A lawyer set himself on fire to protest climate change. Did anyone care?”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     A woman asked, hesitantly: “Is he the one who … self-immolated?”

   • 2023, Kristýna Sněgoňová, “The Dragon of Brno”, in Jakub Mařík, transl., edited by Jakub Mařík and Martin Fajkus, Monster Hunter Fantom. A Monster Hunter Anthology, Baen Books, published 10 May 2024, →ISBN, unnumbered page:

     The teenager stared down the barrel of Petr's gun for a few seconds, then asked hesitantly, “What kind of questions?”
     “Something's going on,” Petr began.
     The pimply deadlingshrugged. “This is Brno, there's always something going on.”

2. With reluctance.

• (with reluctance): reluctantly