disinclination
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of disinclination
First recorded in 1640–50; dis- 1 + inclination
Explanation
If anyone has ever told you to do something you didn’t want to do, you’ve felt a disinclination, a doubt about participating. Having a disinclination means you’re just not into it, so you hesitate. In Herman Melville’s short novel “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” when anyone asks Bartleby for a favor, he always replies, “I would prefer not to.” That’s an example of a disinclination — the feeling that there are other things you’d rather be doing. If someone tells you to eat a lightbulb, you might feel a disinclination to do that, and for good reason. The Latin roots of the word roughly translate to “unable to bend,” which describes your unwilling disinclination quite well.
Vocabulary lists containing disinclination
Novel Study: Lord of the Flies, Chapters 1–4
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George Washington's First Inaugural Address
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Stories of Ourselves
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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.
His posture toward Ukraine weekly demonstrates that disinclination.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 11, 2026
Mark Ronson has always been a mumbler, his soft, unobtrusive speaking voice a product of both his transatlantic upbringing and — notwithstanding the chart-topping pop songs he’s helped create — his general disinclination toward fame.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 13, 2023
Inconsistent as "Picard" could be, it handles its hero's disillusionment with Starfleet's disinclination to take responsibility for massive moral failings, and his own, quite capably.
From Salon • Jun. 23, 2023
His disinclination to push and pull at tempo or dynamics means that when moments of crisis arrive — as in the first-movement development of the D. 664 Sonata — they carry outsize force.
From New York Times • Nov. 23, 2022
The habits of inactivity which the Imperial policy had produced, and which, through a desire for popularity, most emperors laboured to encourage, led to a profound disinclination for the hardships of military life.
From History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 1 of 2) by Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
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.
