How to Use ambivalence in a Sentence

ambivalence

noun
Definition of ambivalencenext
  • The fact that women could be the equals of men aroused ambivalence.
    — National Geographic, 18 June 2020
  • This kind of ambivalence is all over Meet Me by the Fountain.
    — Kristen Martin, The Atlantic, 21 June 2022
  • Parton is not the first artist to express ambivalence about the Hall of Fame.
    — Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 17 Mar. 2022
  • All the emotion attached to this ambivalence — the love, the pain, the humor, the all-of-it — is fleeting, like a bite mark.
    — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 9 Feb. 2022
  • That was something that changed me: seeing the ambivalence, the doubt and the relief all in the same household.
    — Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY, 25 Nov. 2020
  • The key to the mythic mode, asserts Ball, is ambivalence.
    — Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2021
  • Post talks about getting back on the road with some ambivalence.
    — Lyndsey Havens, Billboard, 26 Jan. 2022
  • My ambivalence comes because of the finiteness of the end of the shortest month on the calendar.
    — Marshall Shepherd, Forbes, 28 Feb. 2021
  • This creates a new task for the coachee called ambivalence handling.
    — Cristian Hofmann, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2023
  • The greatest challenge facing the U.S. may be the ambivalence of many of Asia’s leaders.
    — Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, 29 Aug. 2022
  • But what's the real cost of this ambivalence toward work?
    — Melissa Houston, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2024
  • Up and down the state, there was little ambivalence for Elder, just love or hate.
    — Los Angeles Times, 14 Sep. 2021
  • That ambivalence isn’t a mistake or a by-product — it’s the subject of the show itself.
    — Helen Shaw, Vulture, 27 May 2021
  • The song is a very honest display of that ambivalence, anger and sadness.
    — Jonathan Cohen, Variety, 8 Feb. 2022
  • The shifting margin of sea and land, often lit by the moon, held a lure for Edward Lear, a tidal ambivalence.
    — Jenny Uglow, The New York Review of Books, 8 Sep. 2022
  • My colleague Melissa Gomez spoke to a host of teens about their ambivalence.
    — Amina Khan Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2021
  • The best episodes are about the ambivalence Luis, Julio, and the rest of their family have toward tradition.
    — Nicole Froio, refinery29.com, 31 Oct. 2022
  • Stark, who is known for her subversive takes on corsetry, confronts that ambivalence head-on in The Tour.
    — Frances Solá-Santiago, refinery29.com, 28 Sep. 2023
  • Still, ambivalence about renaming Fort Bragg, the largest base in the nation, runs deep.
    — The New York Times, Arkansas Online, 3 Oct. 2021
  • What keeps me awake at night is our proactive ambivalence.
    — CBS News, 24 Nov. 2021
  • But that didn’t change the men’s ambivalence about their own retirement.
    — Charley Locke, The Atlantic, 23 July 2024
  • On top of this is the ambivalence of a number of African countries towards Russia.
    — John F. Clark, Fortune, 27 June 2023
  • The best cop stories probe the ambivalence of police power.
    — Stephen Kearse, The Atlantic, 31 July 2020
  • Perhaps most telling is the ambivalence that some groups express.
    — Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2021
  • The ambivalence to a work that foregrounds a black murderer and rapist in 1940 is easy to understand.
    — Gary Younge, The New York Review of Books, 1 Oct. 2020
  • One of the core ideas is the ambivalence of online relationships.
    — Wilson Chapman, Variety, 14 Apr. 2022
  • What’s accounting for that ambivalence at that point in time?
    — Ej Dickson, Rolling Stone, 23 Apr. 2023
  • There is still ambivalence about the quarterback at best – and a lack of confidence at worst.
    — Pat Leonard, New York Daily News, 15 July 2024
  • Instead, their works explore the artists’ own ambivalence.
    — Emily Watlington, ARTnews.com, 27 Nov. 2024
  • Not an uplifting movie but a potent one, with Abbott a highly watchable figure of ambivalence, longing, and regret.
    — Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 29 Sep. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ambivalence.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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