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Unsure   /ənʃˈʊr/   Listen
Unsure

adjective
1.
Lacking self-confidence.  Synonyms: diffident, shy, timid.  "Problems that call for bold not timid responses" , "A very unsure young man"
2.
Lacking or indicating lack of confidence or assurance.  Synonyms: incertain, uncertain.  "Unsure of himself and his future" , "Moving with uncertain (or unsure) steps" , "An uncertain smile" , "Touched the ornaments with uncertain fingers"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unsure" Quotes from Famous Books



... would prove his incompetence to judge. Yet Russia was too vast a force to be treated as an object of unconcern. As inertia, if in no other way, she represented three- fourths of the human race, and her movement might be the true movement of the future, against the hasty and unsure acceleration of America. No one could yet know what would best suit humanity, and the tourist who carried his La Fontaine in mind, caught himself talking as bear or as monkey according to the mirror he held before him. "Am I satisfied? ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... is sick of their own choice; Their over greedy love hath surfeited; An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. O thou fond many! With what loud applause Didst thou beat Heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, Before he was what thou would'st have him be! And now being trimmed in thine own desires, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... at us when he came in, dearly unsure of himself, and made a valiant but artificial-sounding effort. "Hello men," he said. "My name is Frendon. I'm ...
— Shock Absorber • E.G. von Wald

... still? How many get out of prison who happen outside on such harm as the prison would have kept them from? How many who have been loth to lose their worldly goods have, in keeping of their goods, soon afterward lost their life? So blind is our mortality and so unaware what will befall—so unsure also what manner of mind we ourselves will have tomorrow—that God could not lightly do a man more vengeance than to grant him in this world his ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... isn't it?" and looked hastily away. One never could be sure of finding him quite himself. Even if he walked quite steadily he might not be able to talk quite steadily, but he was always a King, always sure of his manner, be he ever so unsure of his feet or his tongue. He had been worse since his wife died, when the boy was still a toddler. She was a slim, sandy-haired Scotch girl with steady eyes and a prominent chin, who had married him to reform him, and the neighbors were beginning to ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... born, and still unsure of itself, when a robin with its tail cocked up stood up alertly on the window-sill of Uncle Felix's bedroom, peeped in through the open sash, and noticed the objects in front of it with ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... arrive my fortunes are and slow— Hopes are unsure, desires ascend and swell, Suspense, expectancy in me rebel— But swifter to depart than tigers go. Tepid and dark shall be the cold pure snow, The ocean dry, its fish on mountains dwell, The sun set in the East, by that old well Alike whence ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... danced like the sunlight ripples of deep water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did you come to call names, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... Seaton, the staff he carried was for show rather than use, but now he was bent over it, as if but for it he would fall into his grave. His knock was feeble and doubtful, as if unsure of a welcoming response. He ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... his placid hour. Light, so early, lies timidly along the ground. It steals gently from ridge to ridge; it is soft, unsure. That blue dimness, receding from bole to bole, is the skirt of Night's garment, trailing off toward some other star. As easily as it slips from tree to tree, it ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... What chains but are too light for me, should I Say that Lucasta in strange arms could lie? Or that Castara were impure; Or Saccarisa's faith unsure? That Chloris' love, as hair, Embrac'd each en'mies air; That all their good Ran in their blood? 'Tis the same wrong th' unworthy to inthrone, As from her proper sphere ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... Comes Wealhtheow forth, under gold-crown goes where the good pair sit, uncle and nephew, true each to the other one, kindred in amity. Unferth the spokesman at the Scylding lord's feet sat: men had faith in his spirit, his keenness of courage, though kinsmen had found him unsure at the sword-play. The Scylding queen spoke: "Quaff of this cup, my king and lord, breaker of rings, and blithe be thou, gold-friend of men; to the Geats here speak such words of mildness as man should use. Be glad with thy Geats; of those gifts be mindful, or near or far, ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous

... displaced because of the loss of their traditional position of power in Iraq. They are torn, unsure whether to seek their aims through political participation or through violent insurgency. They remain angry about U.S. decisions to dissolve Iraqi security forces and to pursue the "de-Baathification" of Iraq's government and society. Sunnis are confronted by paradoxes: they have opposed ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace

... from him as he arose to his feet; his legs were still cramped and stiffened; he felt clumsy and unsure. Ashton-Kirk evidently agreed that the time had come for action, for ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... shall my soul believe? One conclusion may, at least, be rested in: a man's true success must not be estimated by things done, which had their price in the world; but by that which the world's coarse thumb and finger failed to plumb; by his immature instincts and unsure purposes which weighed not as his work in the world's estimation, yet went toward making up the main amount of his real worth; by thoughts which could not be contained in narrow acts, by fancies which would not submit to the bonds of language; by all that he strived after and could ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... for action amounting to a plan of campaign. One feature of this was based upon the weather differences, which rendered cruising dangerous in the West Indies when most favorable to the northward, and unsure in North America when most certain among the islands. He proposed to utilize this alternation of seasons, by shifting a mobile reinforcement suddenly and secretly from one end to the other of the long front of operations. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tesselated pavement without cement, that it was indeed a curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand upon. The colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards, stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, 'Sir, your name?' 'Sir, you have the advantage of me. Mr. Such-a-one, I beg a thousand ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... Thou foe of the lay, and thou phantom of gloom; Thou bane of delight—when thy shivering plight, And thy grizzle of white,[129] and thy crippleness, come To beg at the door; ah, woe for the poor, And the greeting unsure that grudges their bread; All unwelcome they call—from the hut to the hall The confession of all is, "'Tis time he ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... to control his head, no tearing spurs to threaten him. But his flanks twitched where the spurs had dug in many a time, and he panted, remembering the cinches. Those memories built up a panic. He became unsure. The voice reached him less distinctly. Moreover it was a strange time of the evening. The light of the day was nearly done; the moon was barely up, and all things were ghostly and unreal ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... hawk with sudden sight of lure Doth stoop in hope to have her wished prey; So many men do stoop to sights unsure, And courteous speech doth keep them at the bay: Let them beware lest friendly looks be like The lure whereat the soaring ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... dream,) Blindly to tread on unknown land, Without a guide or helping hand, No previous usage to befriend, (As well we might an infant lend Our eyes' experience, ear, or touch!) Can we in reason wonder much, Her steps are tottering and unsure Where we have learnt to walk secure? Is it not true, what I have told?' Her paus'd, my features to behold— Earl William paus'd: across his mien A strong and sudden change was seen, The courtier bend, protecting tone. And smile ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... in new places and situations where he was unsure and I was sure, so that when I diverged from mirroring him, he gave me the lead and mirrored me. One of us had to be the originator and the other the reflection, but now it was reversed. He did not fight it subconsciously because the results were pleasant. I kept the lead and led him a mental ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... from his day's work Amos Adams would drop in for a chat with the tired teacher, and he refreshed her curiously with his quiet manner and his unsure otherworldliness, and his tough, unyielding optimism. He had no lectures for the children. He would watch them at their games, try to play with them himself in a pathetic, old-fashioned way, telling them fairy stories of an elder and a grimmer day than ours. Sometimes Doctor Nesbit, coming for ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... warm touch was still strong, still reassuring. Only the eyes that he was not looking at now seemed singularly unsure, as if they had seen something they had pondered over lightly, as a mere possibility, years ago, take on sudden impatient body ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... orphans; and there is nothing a man needs so much, in the years while he is still unripe and unsure of himself, as a master whom he must revere in fear or in love. And we—I—Margery, what was my grand-uncle ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers



Words linked to "Unsure" :   groping, assurance, certainty, incertain, dubious, confident, self-confidence, diffident, sure, confidence, doubtful, self-assurance, sureness, certain, authority, ambivalent, uncertain



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