hesitating

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of hesitate.

   The witness was hesitating over every detail of her account.

   Hesitating between two job offers, he turned to friends for advice.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of hesitate, including the one about speech. A witness can be hesitating because she is faltering over her words, not only because she is delaying a choice. The same spelling also works as an adjective that takes degrees, as in a more hesitating answer or the most hesitating voice. It serves as a noun too, and the noun meaning "hesitation" even takes a plural.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A pause or delay before acting, caused by uncertainty or reluctance.

   Her hesitating cost the team valuable seconds in the relay.

   There was a moment of hesitating before he agreed to the plan.

   Similarhesitation, dithering, wavering, hesitancy, delay

   Note

   A noun that can be counted: its plural, hesitatings, lets it name separate moments of faltering. Charles Dickens's The mistaken milliner (1836) has Miss Martin begin "after sundry hesitatings and coughings," turning reluctance into a string of small comic stalls. Paired with other -ing nouns like this, it gains vividness. For a single pause, hesitation is the usual word, so the plural is where this noun earns its place.

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