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disinclined
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  • Even so, the Irishmen seemed disinclined to dismount.†   (source)
  • Both Zebene and Woineshet are quiet and unassuming but possess steel spines; both are disinclined to back down.†   (source)
  • Because of the size and configuration of their bodies, they suffer impeded breathing and circulation when recumbent, and as prey animals who have trouble getting to their feet quickly, they are instinctively disinclined to stay down.†   (source)
  • He had silver hair and blue eyes and was chivalrous but disinclined to talk.†   (source)
  • It was another reason I was disinclined to stay.†   (source)
  • I— le was as preoccupied as he had ever been, and miserably unhappy; and in such a state of mind, as time would show, he was often disinclined to write to her.†   (source)
  • However, it will be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual State governments.†   (source)
  • Jon Arryn was disinclined to foster his grandsons, and my father refused the offer of one of his daughters for Edmure.†   (source)
  • I've explained to them, of course, that my problem is glandular, but being fundamentally sensible people they are disinclined to trust me.†   (source)
  • This was her strength, but also a weakness that she would not have considered a weakness: she felt disinclined, almost repelled, by the thought of intimacies and scenes and contacts.†   (source)
  • Dr. Grant laughingly congratulated Miss Crawford on feeling no disinclination to the state herself.   (source)
    disinclination = reluctance (to do something)
  • "I pay very little regard," said Mrs. Grant, "to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person."   (source)
  • Sir Thomas, drawing back from intimacies in general, was particularly disinclined, at this time, for any engagements but in one quarter.   (source)
    disinclined = reluctant
  • Fanny was very anxious to be useful, and not to appear above her home, or in any way disqualified or disinclined, by her foreign education, from contributing her help to its comforts, and therefore set about working for Sam immediately; and by working early and late, with perseverance and great despatch, did so much that the boy was shipped off at last, with more than half his linen ready.   (source)
  • There was no natural disinclination to be overcome, and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in life.   (source)
    disinclination = reluctance
  • But at other times doubt and alarm intermingled with his hopes; and when he thought of her acknowledged disinclination for privacy and retirement, her decided preference of a London life, what could he expect but a determined rejection? unless it were an acceptance even more to be deprecated, demanding such sacrifices of situation and employment on his side as conscience must forbid.   (source)
    disinclination = attitude of mind that does not favor
  • Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of fascination.†   (source)
  • Consequently, all the arguments about the disinclination to a change vanish.†   (source)
  • Raw and emotional, disinclined toward introspection, he had the kind of gregarious, magnetic personality that instantly won him friends for life; hundreds of individualsincluding some he'd met just once or twice-considered him a bosom buddy.†   (source)
  • Not only was he disinclined to race toward some appointed hour—disdaining even to wear a watch—he took the greatest satisfaction when assuring a friend that a worldly matter could wait in favor of a leisurely lunch or a stroll along the embankment.†   (source)
  • Masson wanted to have a swim at once, but his wife and Raymond were disinclined to move.†   (source)
  • He had a knife in his hand, but he seemed disinclined to pursue the discussion.†   (source)
  • But rendered useless by his fear and his disinclination to action.†   (source)
  • In the days that followed I found Poirot curiously disinclined to discuss the case.†   (source)
  • He had not only public opinion but his own disinclination for the big wedding to support it without incongruity or paradox, as Ellen had her aunt as well as her own desire for the big wedding to support it without incongruity or paradox.†   (source)
  • For this and other reasons he was disinclined to worry over the inevitable, though he did once say: "You know, Chang, I'm bothered about young Mallinson.†   (source)
  • We remain fixated to the unexercised images of our infancy, and hence disinclined to the necessary passages of our adulthood.†   (source)
  • A matter in which Ashley was concerned lay on her conscience and she did not wish to discuss it with Rhett, but she knew he would force the discussion, no matter how disinclined she might be.†   (source)
  • White Fang was disinclined to desert him.†   (source)
  • Yet Fielding was disinclined to give it.†   (source)
  • Carley felt hurt at his apparent disinclination to confide in her.†   (source)
  • To Jane's surprise Lassiter showed disinclination for further talk about his trip.†   (source)
  • The old lady had not been well either, and was disinclined to come out, Ronny reported.†   (source)
  • He suspected that her refusal was due only to a disinclination to let him see her aunt.†   (source)
  • And even Mary could assure her family that she had no disinclination for it.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the question.†   (source)
  • They have a great disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from it first.†   (source)
  • Gringoire himself was not disinclined to regard this as altogether alarming and probable.†   (source)
  • Lady Steyne, after the music scene, succumbed before Becky, and perhaps was not disinclined to her.†   (source)
  • A short struggle ensued, though both were disinclined to violence.†   (source)
  • Levin sat down by them; he felt disinclined to go away.†   (source)
  • He, too, felt suddenly good-humored and disinclined to leave his brother's side.†   (source)
  • Philip felt inclined to cry, but he had an instinctive disinclination to letting other people see his tears, and he clenched his teeth to prevent the sobs from escaping.†   (source)
  • The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations upon the latter.†   (source)
  • It was about May when I first distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage, a growing coarseness of articulation, a growing disinclination to talk.†   (source)
  • It just crossed her mind, too, that he might have a faint recollection of his tender vagary, and was disinclined to allude to it from a conviction that she would take amatory advantage of the opportunity it gave her of appealing to him anew not to go.†   (source)
  • In the next room she slept, and in the third and last she harbored a gasoline stove on which she cooked her meals when disinclined to descend to the neighboring restaurant.†   (source)
  • Only my disinclination to leave Weena, and a persuasion that if I began to slake my thirst for murder my Time Machine might suffer, restrained me from going straight down the gallery and killing the brutes I heard.†   (source)
  • The porter, who had been sullen and disinclined to listen, became alarmed; he could not take the responsibility of breaking into the room; they must go for the commissaire de police.†   (source)
  • Disinclined to return to tl1e audience, she went into the billiard room, where she was greeted by "I want to see the real India," and her appropriate life came back with a rush.†   (source)
  • A Brahminy Bull walked towards them, and Aziz, though disinclined to pray himself, did not see why they should be bothered with the clumsy and idolatrous animal.†   (source)
  • The old man, who had been about to do so from disinclination to confess his weakness, seemed glad at the first suggestion to relinquish the attempt.†   (source)
  • Fraulein Thekla's visit to England made it necessary for her sister to do more in the house, and she could not often spare the time for long walks; and Fraulein Cacilie, with her long plait of fair hair and her little snub-nosed face, had of late shown a certain disinclination for society.†   (source)
  • It was evident that Marius had his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that he feared some source that was not pure, who knows? that he had even, perhaps, discovered that the money came from him, Jean Valjean, that he hesitated before this suspicious fortune, and was disinclined to take it as his own,—preferring that both he and Cosette should remain poor, rather than that they should be rich with wealth that was not clean.†   (source)
  • She persisted in a very determined, though very silent disinclination for Bath; caught the first dim view of the extensive buildings, smoking in rain, without any wish of seeing them better; felt their progress through the streets to be, however disagreeable, yet too rapid; for who would be glad to see her when she arrived?†   (source)
  • All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies.†   (source)
  • Then, begging her pardon for all past unpleasantness, to make her a present of ten thousand roubles and so assist the rupture with Mr. Luzhin, a rupture to which I believe she is herself not disinclined, if she could see the way to it.†   (source)
  • I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind.†   (source)
  • But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.†   (source)
  • Nevertheless, at this point in the conversation, he was conscious of increased disinclination to tell his story about Hetty.†   (source)
  • I have sometimes met in America with young men of wealth, personally disinclined to all laborious exertion, but who had been compelled to embrace a profession.†   (source)
  • It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public.†   (source)
  • The reason of this is, that in matters of civil law the majority is obliged to defer to the authority of the legal profession, and that the American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when they are left to their own choice.†   (source)
  • I understand your disinclination to talk of your future career; but as to what is taking place within you now ….'†   (source)
  • The prospect of that dinner in the intimate home circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andrew, especially as he had not yet seen Speranski in his domestic surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it.†   (source)
  • But probably the Committee, at its discretion, will not be disinclined to consider the question of how far it might be possible to introduce certain improvements consistently with a reasonable expenditure.†   (source)
  • On the contrary, having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a good grateful nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers.†   (source)
  • And especially now, while, with her crested teaspoons and antique china, she was flattering herself with ideas of gentility, she felt an unspeakable disinclination to confront a customer.†   (source)
  • "Oh, he always keeps in his upstairs study on Saturday afternoon," said Tom, who disliked anything sneaking, but was not disinclined to a little stratagem in a worthy cause.†   (source)
  • The colonel launched a volley of oaths, denouncing the railway company and the conductor; and Passepartout, who was furious, was not disinclined to make common cause with him.†   (source)
  • Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and in favour of one of them remaining.†   (source)
  • That I did not join myself to the battle, was less owing to disinclination, than to the bonds of the heathen.†   (source)
  • Robert Martin would never have proceeded so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to him.†   (source)
  • One of the many to whom, from straitened circumstances, a consequent inability to form the associations they would wish, and a disinclination to mix with the society they could obtain, London is as complete a solitude as the plains of Syria, the humble artist had pursued her lonely, but contented way for many years; and, until the peculiar misfortunes of the Nickleby family attracted her attention, had made no friends, though brimful of the friendliest feelings to all mankind.†   (source)
  • He was, moreover, not disinclined to marry, but only such a lady who could bring with her a dowry of two hundred thousand roubles.†   (source)
  • The effect of this disinclination, on the part of the public, towards the artificers of their pleasures, when they attempt to enlarge their means of amusing, may be seen in the censures usually passed by vulgar criticism upon actors or artists who venture to change the character of their efforts, that, in so doing, they may enlarge the scale of their art.†   (source)
  • After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that Nancy should repair to the Jew's next evening when the night had set in, and bring Oliver away with her; Fagin craftily observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task, he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in his behalf, than anybody else.†   (source)
  • The disinherited son of a small squire, equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by the favour of earth and sky, has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot where it first shot upward.†   (source)
  • …but as they both belonged to the more intelligent class of a very small community, they were, of course, known to each other, and as their meeting was at a point where silence would have been rudeness, the following conversation was the result of their interview: "A fine evening, Mr. Edwards," commenced the lawyer, whose disinclination to the dialogue was, to say the least, very doubtful; "we want rain sadly; that's the worst of this climate of ours, it's either a drought or a deluge.†   (source)
  • Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost banished Earnshaw from his apartment.†   (source)
  • She was set thinking a great deal about Oak and of his wish to shun her; and there occurred to Bathsheba several incidents of her latter intercourse with him, which, trivial when singly viewed, amounted together to a perceptible disinclination for her society.†   (source)
  • "This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house!†   (source)
  • He added that Mr. Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London and promised to write again very soon.†   (source)
  • "A very pretty piece of modesty on their parts!" rejoined I. "Why, the truth is, that they are not disinclined to vote, but they are afraid of being maltreated; in this country the law is sometimes unable to maintain its authority without the support of the majority.†   (source)
  • Mr. Dowlas consented to go as a second person disinclined to act officially; and so poor Silas, furnished with some old coverings, turned out with his two companions into the rain again, thinking of the long night-hours before him, not as those do who long to rest, but as those who expect to "watch for the morning".†   (source)
  • Their conversation the preceding evening did not disincline him to seek her again; and they walked together some time, talking as before of Mr Scott and Lord Byron, and still as unable as before, and as unable as any other two readers, to think exactly alike of the merits of either, till something occasioned an almost general change amongst their party, and instead of Captain Benwick, she had Captain Harville by her side.†   (source)
  • The rebuff he had met with in his first attempt to win Lydgate's confidence, disinclined him to a second; but this news of the execution being actually in the house, determined the Vicar to overcome his reluctance.†   (source)
  • In not telling his father, he was influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those who admire it,—partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is seen between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most sacred relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise his father with a great joy.†   (source)
  • This was, indeed, an event which, in his ardour for the Saxon cause, he could not have anticipated, and even when the disinclination of both was broadly and plainly manifested, he could scarce bring himself to believe that two Saxons of royal descent should scruple, on personal grounds, at an alliance so necessary for the public weal of the nation.†   (source)
  • He was almost afraid of asking about her; besides, his attention was claimed by greetings, and there remained the hope that Dinah was in the house, though perhaps disinclined to festivities on the eve of her departure.†   (source)
  • As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the alterations which would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing of his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia's modern ideas.†   (source)
  • He felt fearfully disinclined to pull off the blanket, get up, get cold, but all at once something unpleasant ran over his leg again.†   (source)
  • …not speak without a shudder; she was fond of eating—and fasted rigidly; she slept ten hours out of the twenty-four—and never went to bed at all if Vassily Ivanovitch had so much as a headache; she had never read a single book except Alexis or the Cottage in the Forest; she wrote one, or at the most two letters in a year, but was great in housewifery, preserving, and jam-making, though with her own hands she never touched a thing, and was generally disinclined to move from her place.†   (source)
  • …and serenity of the hour; long pauses, too, at times, and then an earnest word or so, and then another interval of silence which, somehow, does not seem like silence either, and perhaps now and then a hasty turning away of the head, or drooping of the eyes towards the ground, all these minor circumstances, with a disinclination to have candles introduced and a tendency to confuse hours with minutes, are doubtless mere influences of the time, as many lovely lips can clearly testify.†   (source)
  • One of those fits of yearning was on him now, and it would have been strong enough to have persuaded him to trust Wildfire to Dunstan rather than disappoint the yearning, even if he had not had another reason for his disinclination towards the morrow's hunt.†   (source)
  • "If you want to go out, let's go together," he said, disinclined to be parted from his brother, who seemed positively breathing out freshness and energy.†   (source)
  • Now that the first flush of his anger had paled he was disinclined to ascribe to her more than an indiscreet friendship with Wildeve, for there had not appeared in her manner the signs of dishonour.†   (source)
  • At one moment he thought, "I will write a letter: I prefer that to any circuitous talk;" at another he thought, "No; if I were talking to him, I could make a retreat before any signs of disinclination."†   (source)
  • The pleasure of the dance with Hetty was gone; his eyes, when they rested on her, had an uneasy questioning expression in them; he could think of nothing to say to her; and she too was out of temper and disinclined to speak.†   (source)
  • She felt that she had no business at Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it.†   (source)
  • As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and though his answer was in the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own.†   (source)
  • Besides, he had that mental combination which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge: it was the depth of his reverence quite as much as his hard common sense which gave him his disinclination to doctrinal religion, and he often checked Seth's argumentative spiritualism by saying, "Eh, it's a big mystery; thee know'st but little about it."†   (source)
  • Being a woman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat down under her umbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certain hopefulness as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and between important thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal matter which caught her eyes.†   (source)
  • Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women, so interesting to her was their conversation, so completely identical were all their interests.†   (source)
  • Christy himself, a square-browed, broad-shouldered masculine edition of his mother not much higher than Fred's shoulder—which made it the harder that he should be held superior—was always as simple as possible, and thought no more of Fred's disinclination to scholarship than of a giraffe's, wishing that he himself were more of the same height.†   (source)
  • She had by now got her household matters so satisfactorily arranged, thanks to Marya Philimonovna, that she was disinclined to make any change in them; besides, she had no faith in Levin's knowledge of farming.†   (source)
  • But his wife might wonder why he did not go to her as usual; and so, overcoming his disinclination, he went towards the bedroom.†   (source)
  • And in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch still had one feeling left in regard to her—a disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her advantage.†   (source)
  • Whatever Marianne was desirous of, her mother would be eager to promote—she could not expect to influence the latter to cautiousness of conduct in an affair respecting which she had never been able to inspire her with distrust; and she dared not explain the motive of her own disinclination for going to London.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER 3 Mrs. Dashwood remained at Norland several months; not from any disinclination to move when the sight of every well known spot ceased to raise the violent emotion which it produced for a while; for when her spirits began to revive, and her mind became capable of some other exertion than that of heightening its affliction by melancholy remembrances, she was impatient to be gone, and indefatigable in her inquiries for a suitable dwelling in the neighbourhood of Norland; for to…†   (source)
  • The mustached man seemed disinclined to have me along, wherever they were going.†   (source)
  • There was a pine grove up ahead, and the horses seemed disinclined to go any nearer to it.†   (source)
  • He paused; I wasn't sure if it was merely the disinclination to reveal information, or if he was trying to make sure of his words.†   (source)
  • In part, as I say, these changes in surname are enforced by the sheer inability of Americans to pronounce certain Continental consonants, and their disinclination to remember the Continental vowel sounds.†   (source)
  • On the one hand it is a habit of verbal economy—a jealous disinclination to waste two words on what can be put into one, a natural taste for the brilliant and [Pg162] succinct, a disdain of all grammatical and lexicographical daintiness, born partly, perhaps, of ignorance, but also in part of a sound sense of their imbecility.†   (source)
  • And of consequence, all the declamation about the disinclination to a change vanishes in air.†   (source)
  • The others would as naturally be disinclined to a revision, which was likely to end in an increase of their own incumbrances.†   (source)
  • Surely you will give me time to endeavour to get the better of so strong a disinclination as I have at present to this person.†   (source)
  • And though both places were too publick to admit of any particularities, and she was farther relieved by the musick at the one place, and by the cards at the other, she could not, however, enjoy herself in his company; for there is something of delicacy in women, which will not suffer them to be even easy in the presence of a man whom they know to have pretensions to them which they are disinclined to favour.†   (source)
  • However, when Tom grew up, and gave tokens of that gallantry of temper which greatly recommends men to women, this disinclination which she had discovered to him when a child, by degrees abated, and at last she so evidently demonstrated her affection to him to be much stronger than what she bore her own son, that it was impossible to mistake her any longer.†   (source)
  • The hope of a still further increase afforded an inducement to those who were disposed to serve to procrastinate their enlistment, and disinclined them from engaging for any considerable periods.†   (source)
  • The world, I do agree, are apt to be too unmerciful on these occasions; yet time and perseverance will get the better of this their disinclination, as I may call it, to pity; for though they are not, like heaven, ready to receive a penitent sinner; yet a continued repentance will at length obtain mercy even with the world.†   (source)
  • If associates could not be found at home, recourse would be had to the aid of foreign powers, who would seldom be disinclined to encouraging the dissensions of a Confederacy, from the firm union of which they had so much to fear.†   (source)
  • This I understood as an attempt to lessen, if possible, that disinclination which my interest might be supposed to give me towards the match; and I know not but in some measure it had that effect; for, as I was well contented with my own fortune, and of all people the least a slave to interested views, so I could not be violently the enemy of a man with whose behaviour to me I was greatly pleased; and the more so, as I was the only object of such respect; for he behaved at the same…†   (source)
  • As far as I have been able to divine the latent meaning of the objectors, it seems to originate in a presupposition that the people will be disinclined to the exercise of federal authority in any matter of an internal nature.†   (source)
  • In opposition to the probability of subsequent amendments, it has been urged that the persons delegated to the administration of the national government will always be disinclined to yield up any portion of the authority of which they were once possessed.†   (source)
  • Regard to the public peace, if not to the rights of the Union, would engage the citizens to whom the contagion had not communicated itself to oppose the insurgents; and if the general government should be found in practice conducive to the prosperity and felicity of the people, it were irrational to believe that they would be disinclined to its support.†   (source)
  • I mean not by these reflections to insinuate, that the new federal government will not embrace a more enlarged plan of policy than the existing government may have pursued; much less, that its views will be as confined as those of the State legislatures; but only that it will partake sufficiently of the spirit of both, to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the preorgatives of their governments.†   (source)
  • In the article of pecuniary contribution, which would be the most usual source of delinquency, it would often be impossible to decide whether it had proceeded from disinclination or inability.†   (source)
  • Waiving any exception that might be taken to the inaccuracy or inexplicitness of the distinction between internal and external, let us inquire what ground there is to presuppose that disinclination in the people.†   (source)
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