ambivalence

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
20
Words With Friends
26
Letters
11
Pronunciation
/æmˈbɪvələns/

Definition of ambivalence

2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)The coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings (such as love and hate) towards a person, object or idea.
    “"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.”
    “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.””
See all 2 definitions

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)The coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings (such as love and hate) towards a person, object or idea.
    “"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.”
    “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.””
  2. (countable, uncountable)A state of uncertainty or indecisiveness.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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.

Words you can make from ambivalence

200+ playable · top: BIVALENCE (16 pts)

Best play bivalence 16 points

9-letter words

1 word

8-letter words

12 words

7-letter words

21 words

6-letter words

55 words

5-letter words

93 words

4-letter words

17 words

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

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