as in tepid
showing little or no interest or enthusiasm
a halfhearted attempt to clean the house before the arrival of the in-laws
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Recent Examples of halfhearted
And those problems are magnified in the slack middle section of this 160-minute film, as the hunters make discoveries of their own in the forest, unnecessary subplots and aliens multiply, and there are some halfhearted attempts at giving them a thin backstory.
—
Jessica Kiang, Variety, 17 May 2026
Through all these threads, The Audacity throws itself headlong at some of tech’s biggest hot-button topics, including privacy, AI and, in an oddly halfhearted subplot involving JoAnne’s son, Everett Bliunck’s Orson, the manosphere, with an eye as cold as its characters.
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 10 Apr. 2026
Alex Bregman was the one who got away, the All-Star third baseman the club tried to sign in spring training with a halfhearted contract proposal that would be rejected.
—Patrick Mooney, New York Times, 11 Jan. 2026
The closest Alex and Tess get to a custody battle is a halfhearted chat about who gets the armoire.
—Justin Chang, New Yorker, 12 Dec. 2025
Musical theater loves a go-getter, and halfhearted irony just can’t stand up to this much zazz.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 10 Nov. 2025
He was used to students skipping the readings or making a halfhearted attempt.
—Kelly Meyerhofer, jsonline.com, 23 Oct. 2025
At times, Beijing has taken harsh measures toward North Korea—including temporarily suspending oil shipments, restricting Chinese tourism, and applying financial sanctions to the North—although such efforts have typically been short-lived and halfhearted.
—Shuxian Luo, Foreign Affairs, 21 Aug. 2025
Jessica Kiang, Variety, 17 May 2026
Through all these threads, The Audacity throws itself headlong at some of tech’s biggest hot-button topics, including privacy, AI and, in an oddly halfhearted subplot involving JoAnne’s son, Everett Bliunck’s Orson, the manosphere, with an eye as cold as its characters.
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 10 Apr. 2026
Alex Bregman was the one who got away, the All-Star third baseman the club tried to sign in spring training with a halfhearted contract proposal that would be rejected.
—Patrick Mooney, New York Times, 11 Jan. 2026
The closest Alex and Tess get to a custody battle is a halfhearted chat about who gets the armoire.
—Justin Chang, New Yorker, 12 Dec. 2025
Musical theater loves a go-getter, and halfhearted irony just can’t stand up to this much zazz.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 10 Nov. 2025
He was used to students skipping the readings or making a halfhearted attempt.
—Kelly Meyerhofer, jsonline.com, 23 Oct. 2025
At times, Beijing has taken harsh measures toward North Korea—including temporarily suspending oil shipments, restricting Chinese tourism, and applying financial sanctions to the North—although such efforts have typically been short-lived and halfhearted.
—Shuxian Luo, Foreign Affairs, 21 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for halfhearted
Adjective
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Jack is desperate to keep Nick’s Thanksgiving traditions alive, like the talent show, but gets a tepid reception.—
Erin Jensen,
USA Today,
28 May 2026
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This caused a great clamor of approval, and a modicum of tepid ooh-la-la disapproval by the folks who actually approved but who were too cowardly to say so, back in the day.—
Guy Martin,
Forbes.com,
26 May 2026
Adjective
-
Like the power looms, automated threshers, and robotic assembly lines before them, platform technologies are not neutral.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
28 May 2026
-
These are the ocular dominance columns, described in the Nobel Prize-winning research of David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel in the 1960s, whose recordings from cats’ (Felis catus) and macaques’ (genus Macaca) revealed that the visual cortex is not a neutral integrator of the two eyes’ signals.—
Scott Travers,
Forbes.com,
27 May 2026
Adjective
-
But historical low voter turnout in gubernatorial primaries, combined with an electorate that has been largely unenthusiastic about the candidates at the top of the ballot, could drive the outcome of the high-stakes election.—
Grace Hase,
Mercury News,
4 May 2026
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In this purple-on-purple preppy look, Lady Di (then a 19-year-old nursery school teacher) seemed sweet—if not a little unenthusiastic about being photographed.—
Natalie Arroyo Camacho,
InStyle,
2 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Wu has been only lukewarm on the World Cup and is feuding with state officials on their plan to shut down Summer Street near South Station on days of the matches.—
Joe Battenfeld,
Boston Herald,
23 May 2026
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Washington Spirit 1, Pachuca 0 The Spirit and Pachuca faced off later Wednesday at the same venue in a semifinal that was lukewarm by comparison.—
Tamerra Griffin,
New York Times,
22 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Halfhearted.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/halfhearted. Accessed 4 Jun. 2026.
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