Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The characteristic of being tentative.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Payton forged a peace between the two ragtime favorites by making his compositional technique self-evident: starting off slowly and laying the melodies out as if unfolding a blueprint; the widely spaced note placements could be heard as tentative, but the tentativeness was a ploy, and as the piece progressed it built up steam, like a locomotive getting underway.

    Disquiet » Digital Voodoo 2003

  • If the market fails to get past those levels, and we see some kind of tentativeness or nervousness coming in around

    Moneycontrol Top Headlines 2009

  • The "tentativeness" of the conclusions was emphasized in the original 1999 article. the question that was actually debated by the IPCC chapter 2 co-authors was how to make an assessment of confidence given that one of the three studies (Mann et al) had estimated uncertainties in reconstructed values, making it possible to obtain a statistical estimate of significance, and allowing the conclusion to be drawn that recent warmth was "likely" anomalous in at least the past 1000 years.

    Climate Progress Joe 2010

  • Tenorists Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson are among his models, but for much of this fine album he deploys something of Wayne Shorter's hypnotic tentativeness, and the melodic style of the Cool School-inspired Mark Turner.

    Josh Arcoleo: Beginnings – review 2012

  • Decoding her tentativeness while perceiving her tension, he figured some friendly conversation would relax her.

    Who Said It Would Be Easy Cheryl Faye 2011

  • The gig felt more like an open rehearsal than a celebration, not because of any tentativeness in the music, but because 80 percent of the band looked to be concentrating awfully hard.

    In concert: Xylos at Red Palace 2011

  • My attribution to this rather humdrum enumeration of numbers is perhaps a reflexive tentativeness on a pundit (esp a conservative one) when commenting on race.

    “Actual” Support. You Know, From White People 2009

  • Lute's eyes were quizzical as she asked with a tentativeness that was palpably assumed, "With — a — with Mr. Barton?"

    Jack London's Story - Moon Face: Planchette pg 3 of 3 2010

  • The basic problem with the blog Overcoming Bias is that overcoming bias requires a deep sense of humility and an understanding of the tentativeness of our ability to model reality through concepts.

    Robin Hanson Video, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • Decoding her tentativeness while perceiving her tension, he figured some friendly conversation would relax her.

    Who Said It Would Be Easy Cheryl Faye 2011

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