hesitant, adj. 1. pausing, halting, stopping, hesitating, hesitative; waiting, delaying, stalling, dragging, lagging, dallying; tardy, dilatory, deferring, postponing, procrastinating, procrastinative, cunctating, cunc-tatious, cunctatory.
2. undecided, unresolved, unsettled; uncertain, unsure, doubtful, dubious; indecisive, indefinite, irresolute, go-slow, indeterminate; wavering, hovering, fluctuating, wobbling, faltering; alternating, vacillating, vacillant, oscillating, oscillatory; shilly-shallying, shifting, seesawing; debating, deliberating, weighing; demurring, scrupling, boggling; equivocating, equivocal, quibbling, evasive; inconstant, changeable, fickle.
3. disinclined, unwilling, reluctant, loath, half-hearted; constrained, restrained, reserved; timid, shy, bashful, fidgety, tremulous, diffident.
hesitate, v. 1. pause, wait, delay, hang back; procrastinate, hold off, hold [s.t.] up, lay [s.t.] over, refrain from further action, let the matter stand; balk, recoil, shrink, swerve, shy; dally, dillydally; temporize, put off, Inf drag one's feet, Inf. footdrag, gain time, play for time; Inf. stall, stave off, hold out.
2. equivocate, dissemble, evade, skirt, hedge, fence, quibble, pussyfoot, pull back, straddle the fence; waver, hover, scruple, demur, boggle, doubt; vacillate, oscillate, alternate, fluctuate, shilly-shally, shift, falter, change one's mind, blow hot and cold, seesaw, go back and forth, tergiversate; deliberate, debate, ponder, balance, linger, weigh and consider, think twice.
3. stammer, sputter, splutter, stutter; stumble, fumble, halt; mutter, hum, hem, haw, hem and haw, Brit. haver, Brit. Dial, mammer.
heterodox, adj. unorthodox, heretical, heretic, iconoclastic; skeptical, doubting. See - heretical.
heterodoxy, n. unorthodoxy, heresy, nonconformity; dissent, dissention, recusancy. See - heresy.
heterogeneity, n. 1. disparateness, inconsistency, incongruity, unconformity, nonconformity, Geol. dis-conformity; dissimilarity, dissimilitude, variance, inharmoniousness, Biol, heteromorphism.
2. multiformity, polymorphism, omniformity, nonuniformity, variation; variety, diversity, multifariousness, many-sidedness, variegation, multiplex.
heterogeneous, adj. 1. different, disparate, unlike, dissimilar, Biol, heteromorphic; incongruous, incompatible, inharmonious; unrelated, discrepant.
2. multiform, polymorphic, nonuniform, omniform; many-sided, many-headed, composite, multifold; multifarious, various, diverse, multiplex; manifold, sundry, miscellaneous, farraginous, mixed, variegated, diversified.
heterosexual, adj. drawn to the opposite sex, SI. straight, SI. hetero.