half-embrace

plural half-embraces

1. A partial hug.

   1 more example

   “But throughout these calamities.“ huskily continued Don Benito. painfully turning in the half-embrace of his servant. “I have to thank those Negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearing unruly, have, indeed, conducted themselves with less restlessness than even their owner could have thought possible under such circumstances."

   1855, Herman Melville, Benito Cereno

2. An ambivalent acceptance or adoption.

   This half-embrace of failure, as Coward suggests, is something the British like to think of as distinctly British.

   2012, Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote, Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, →ISBN

present singular third person half-embraces · participle present half-embracing · participle past half-embraced · past half-embraced

1. transitiveTo embrace or wrap around partially.

   Flowers destitute of ray; leaves pinnatised, toothed, half-embracing the stem.

   1835, William Withering, An Arrangement of British Plants

2. transitiveTo adopt in an ambivalent or partial manner.

   One solution, which his own England would later half-embrace, was socialism or collectivism, “in which the means of production” are “in the hands of the political officers of the community.

   2010, Benjamin Wiker, 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read: Plus Four Not to Miss and One Impostor, →ISBN