Ambivalence Meaning
/æmˈbɪvələns/Definition, CEFR level C2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings (such as love and hate) towards a person, object or idea.
nounA state of uncertainty or indecisiveness.
Sentence Examples
She felt ambivalence towards her new job.
The ambivalence of the situation was confusing.
She felt deep ambivalence about moving to another country for work.
CEFR Practice Quiz
He felt deep ____ about moving abroad, torn between excitement and fear.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She felt a sense of ____ about her new job and its many demands.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from German Ambivalenz (“simultaneous conflicting feelings”), from Latin ambi- (“both”) and valentia (“strength”), from the verb valere (“to be strong”) (see valiant); spelled on the model of French-origin words ending in -ence. The German term was coined by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1910; by 1929, it had taken on a broader literary and general sense. Equivalent to ambi- + valence.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
""I dearly loved my master, son," she said.
"You should have hated him," I said.
"He gave me several sons," she said, "and because I loved my sons I learned to love their father though I hated him too."
"I too have become acquainted with ambivalence, I said."
— 1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Prologue:
"The great sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued that philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism both fall under “allosemitism”: literally Othering the Jew. He defined it not as resentment of what is different, which is xenophobia, but rather of what defies order and clear categories. In 1997, he wrote, “The Jew is ambivalence incarnate. And ambivalence is ambivalence mostly because it cannot be contemplated without ambivalent feeling: it is simultaneously attractive and repelling.”"
— 2020 January 28, Mairov Zonszein, “Christian Zionist philo-Semitism is driving Trump’s Israel policy”, in The Washington Post, archived from the original on 30 Jan 2020:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
He felt deep ____ about moving abroad, torn between excitement and fear.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She felt a sense of ____ about her new job and its many demands.