ambivalent

[am-biv-uh-luhnt]

adjective

1. 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.

2. 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

Word History and Origins

Origin of ambivalent¹

Back formation from ambivalence

Example Sentences

If Republicans fail, big-government populists in both parties will run roughshod over confused and ambivalent incumbents.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

For many Latino members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is an ambivalent sense of the Church’s stance on immigrants.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

There was an ambivalent, if not stone cold, attitude towards the beefy Californian.

Read more on BBC

Los Angeles, home of the nation’s first freeway and drive-in church, has long been ambivalent if not downright antagonistic toward paid parking.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Work I was involved in has shown that people who are dispositionally ambivalent — that is, who are more comfortable holding contradictory thoughts or feelings — are less prone to cognitive biases like the confirmation bias.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• contradictory 
• doubtful 
• equivocal 
• hesitant 
• mixed 
• uncertain 
• undecided 
• unsure