Hesitate vs Anxious - What's the difference?
hesitate | anxious |
To stop or pause respecting decision or action; to be in suspense or uncertainty as to a determination.
To stammer; to falter in speaking.
(transitive, poetic, rare) To utter with hesitation or to intimate by a reluctant manner.
*
Full of anxiety or disquietude; greatly concerned or solicitous, especially respecting something future or unknown; being in painful suspense;—applied to persons; as, anxious for the issue of a battle.
:
*
*:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious , despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=19 *{{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 13, author=Alistair Magowan, work=BBC Sport
, title= Accompanied with, or causing, anxiety; worrying;—applied to things; as, anxious labor.
*(John Milton) (1608-1674)
*:The sweet of life, from which God hath bid dwell far off all anxious cares.
Earnestly desirous; as, anxious to please.
:
* (1800-1859)
*:He sneers alike at those who are anxious to preserve and at those who are eager for reform.
As a verb hesitate
is to stop or pause respecting decision or action; to be in suspense or uncertainty as to a determination.As an adjective anxious is
full of anxiety or disquietude; greatly concerned or solicitous, especially respecting something future or unknown; being in painful suspense;—applied to persons; as, anxious for the issue of a battle.hesitate
English
Alternative forms
* (archaic)Verb
(hesitat)- He hesitated''' whether to accept the offer or not; men often '''hesitate in forming a judgment.
- (Alexander Pope)
- Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* deliberate * demur * doubt * falter * mammer * scruple * stammer * waverDerived terms
* hesitant * hesitationExternal links
* * *anxious
English
(Anxiety) (Webster 1913)Alternative forms
* anctious (obsolete)Adjective
(en-adj)citation, passage=Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.}}
Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd, passage=But, with United fans in celebratory mood as it appeared their team might snatch glory, they faced an anxious wait as City equalised in stoppage time.}}