ambivalent

adj

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.”

   “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.””

2. Alternately being or having one opinion or feeling, and then the opposite.

   “His feelings toward his parents are ambivalent.”