reluctantly

adverb

re·​luc·​tant·​ly ri-ˈlək-tənt-lē 

: in a reluctant manner : with aversion or hesitation

The quiet resolution in his voice penetrated her racing thoughts. Reluctantly she gave him a corner of her attention.

—Elizabeth George Speare

He is about to release 'Thriller,' and today he's agreed, reluctantly, to sit for the Rolling Stone cover.

—Gerri Hirshey

Kirsti had gone to bed reluctantly, complaining that she wanted to stay up with the others, that she was grownup enough, … that it wasn't fair.

—Lois Lowry

Examples of reluctantly in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

It is written in an almost stream-of-consciousness style, rather like someone reluctantly dredging up their memories, with random thoughts interrupting the narrative, long sentences sometimes running to over a page, little punctuation, and peppered with Kobe dialect. —Ginny Tapley Takemori september 4, Literary Hub, 4 Sep. 2025

After being discovered, Rumi, Mira and Zoey reluctantly make their entrance on the game show by coming down on a slide that leads into a ball pit. —Christopher Rudolph, People.com, 27 Aug. 2025

The Fed only reluctantly started to raise rates in mid-2022. —Nino Paoli, Fortune, 21 Aug. 2025

Children going missing — and staying missing — on reservations is so common, tribal communities have become reluctantly desensitized to the issue, Seminole said. —Peyton Haug, Twin Cities, 18 Aug. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1646, in the meaning defined above