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noncommittal

adj
/ˌnɒnkəˈmɪtl̩/UK/ˌnɑnkəˈmɪtl̩/US

Etymology

From non- + committal.

  1. derived from committō
  2. inherited from committen
  3. suffixed as committal — “commit + al”
  4. prefixed as noncommittal — “non + committal”

Definitions

  1. Tending to avoid commitment

    Tending to avoid commitment; lacking certainty or decisiveness; reluctant to give out information or show one's feelings or opinion.

    • The Major's face was noncommittal.
    • The noncommittal Indians would give no counsel as to fording.
    • [He] is candid, open-hearted, and hardly non-commmittal enough for his own interest at times.

  2. Failure to commit to a decision or course of action.

    • As a result of cowardly noncommittals during the immediate postelection period, there was so much strain on several black-white Democratic relationships that they approached open ruptures.

  3. A voter etc. who has not yet committed to a decision.

    • Where they occur, in the Liberal increases in Quebec and Ontario for instance, they are offset by declines in the number of undecideds or noncommittals.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for noncommittal. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA