ambivalent
adjUK, US /æmˈbɪv.ə.lənt/
Etymology Back-formation from ambivalence, from German Ambivalenz, from Latin ambi- (“in two ways”) + valeō (“be strong”); equivalent to ambi- + -valent. Compare ambivert.
1
Simultaneously experiencing or expressing opposing or contradictory feelings, beliefs, motivations, or meanings.
- In modern burlesque [...] sexual and erotic stimuli are often present in concealed and ambivalent doubles entendres.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 77:
- 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:
2
Alternately being or having one opinion or feeling, and then the opposite.
- His feelings toward his parents are ambivalent.
- Synonyms
- conflicted, uncertain, undecided, unresolved, vacillating, fluctuating, wavering
- Derived terms
- ambivalently, nonambivalent, preambivalent, unambivalent
- Related terms
- ambiguous, ambivalence, equivalent