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How To Use Tentative In A Sentence

  • Klimt's tentative chalk and pencil strokes do little more than outline and emphasize the foreshortened legs, buttocks and genitalia of his subjects, their scrawled lifelessness compromising the images' erotic impact. Modernism's Austrian Rebels
  • Reaching out tentatively towards me, he fingered the pair of rings I always wore on a chain around my neck.
  • The Nobel laureate Richard Feynman once made a tentative suggestion that a theory uniting quantum mechanics and relativity might lead to an objective state reduction, and others have taken up and built on this idea.
  • It is a challenging question without a clear answer, but some tentative suggestions can be attempted. Times, Sunday Times
  • I took a tentative sip of my wine: a muddy Pinot Grigio from the reed-riddled fields of some reclaimed Italian marsh. THE CALLIGRAPHER
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  • What the something might be, the sound soon explained; he was applying keys tentatively to a cupboard, a closet, and a scrutoire, in the hidden part of the room. Note Book of an English Opium-Eater
  • At times the home rearguard looked tentative. Times, Sunday Times
  • It rejected a host of tentative offers for the business in favour of selling individual stores. The Sun
  • If you're taking tentative steps up the professional ladder, consider all the options.
  • However, he played with some uncertainty and tentativeness, and no one is sure just how durable he will be.
  • Church relations were tentative and the ecumenical movement was still in its early stages. A Channel of Peace
  • We laid out a third trench 3 m east of the second trench in order to further investigate the large central room of the northern series as well as to uncover its southern wall and part of the large central courtyard (tentatively identified as the palaestra of the complex). Interactive Dig Sagalassos - Near the Theater Report 7
  • I heard a beautiful yet patternless noise that my mind tentatively identified as laughter.
  • My position, then, again tentatively, would be opposite that of Rolf Notes on 'Kafka and the Coincidence of Opposites'
  • She called his name tentatively, then repeated it more loudly. Gage Butler's Reckoning
  • She tentatively pulled her hands; the ropes were tight.
  • But now, as Kurt and I moved tentatively toward where Pam had buttonholed him, Murdoch seemed not only unaccompanied but alone.
  • It would destroy any tentative revival of confidence and spending.
  • In tandem with a reform of the modern Mass, already tentatively under way, the foundations could be laid for a return to dignified worship and reassertion of doctrine.
  • This paper at tentatively studies the theory of traveling bubble cavitation noise emitted from high-speed underwater self-navigator of Schiebe body.
  • With the help of hospital physio teams, Dawn has taken her first tentative steps on false legs this month.
  • Those meetings are tentatively scheduled for the end of June 2004 and include meetings in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • Chile begin tentatively but some brassy moves at the back seem to invigorate the frontman and he rewards us with some classy moves – cheered on by his fellow players. Pop World Cup 2010: Group H – Chile 1 Honduras 3 | FreakyTrigger
  • Sometimes the pieces resemble the tentative first draft of what might one day become a more challenging suite. Times, Sunday Times
  • To religious conservatives, however, even these tentative and moderate reforms were undesirable and alarming.
  • It was a kind of empire built on very provisional and tentative things that might happen.
  • The lakeshore processes displayed through the formation of numerous bars, spits and tombolos within the lakes of this park are tentatively assigned provincial significance.
  • I expect that the gate will be secured and that I will have to contrive some way to get through it, but when I press my hand tentatively against one side of the iron scrollwork, hinges creak. Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer
  • Tentatively, I ventured out, then realised that half the neighbourhood was standing around gawping.
  • Tentatively I set it down on the next step up, the stair felt and looked like a mattress would under foot but it held firm and took my weight.
  • Joseph Millson also captures exactly the shy, goofily smiling tentativeness of the dentist who is afraid of total commitment. Review | Theatre | Rocket to the Moon | Venue | Michael Billington
  • She noticed a handwritten note on the table and tentatively picked it up. Times, Sunday Times
  • The current batch of super Casinos in a relatively finite space are already forming tentative alliances, offering monorails between venues that are separately owned and operated.
  • The sole survivor of three chicks hatched by a record-breaking pair of ospreys has taken its first tentative flight from its eyrie in Kielder Water and Forest Park in Northumberland. Treetop CCTV captures the first flight of an osprey chick
  • It probably hit a raw nerve in a country tentatively forging an independent identity and sensitive about its folklore. Times, Sunday Times
  • The tentative order divvies up the right to take off and land once per day on flights between the approved cities. DOT awards new Tokyo routes to Delta, American, Hawaiian
  • She spoke the word tentatively, as if testing it for its sound. Carolina Mist
  • Zlotin glared icily at him then stepped tentatively into the room, looking around him slowly. CODE BREAKER
  • Now she is making her first tentative steps on the comeback trail. Times, Sunday Times
  • Bosingwa was powerless to haul the winger in, with the Wales international's cross beautifully angled as it fizzed across the six-yard box beyond Terry for Adebayor to tap home ahead of a Petr Cech's tentative dive. Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Chelsea | Premier League match report
  • It should not come as a surprise to learn that social signifiers play a major role in his new book, tentatively entitled “Sociable design. †He lives at jnd. org. JND.org
  • Our findings provide preliminary and highly tentative impressions.
  • The consultation document suggested building new terminals at Manchester Airport and raised the tentative prospect of a third runway even though the second one is just two years old.
  • Cortes speaks to both of us at once - to him in rapid Spanish, to me in tentative English punctuated by long gaps in which he turns his limpid brown eyes my way, imploring me to help him find the missing words.
  • She was tall and slim, with angular features and a tentative smile. Spitfire Women of World War II
  • Her shoulders shook with relief and for the first time in three years of court proceedings, a tentative smile flickered across her face. The Sun
  • A pale blue-green mineral tentatively identified as rosasite occurs with the cerussite as botryoidal and stalactitic masses.
  • The first tentative encounter between Paul and his offspring is handled with considerable wit and delicacy. The Kids Are All Right – review
  • I looked at Valerie 's tentative list of proteins from the mush and pursed my lips as if coming in for a smooch. VITALS
  • Dr.W. John Martin, chief of immunopathology at the University of Southern California, has tentatively linked the mysterious microbe to an equally enigmatic illness: chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). A Clue To Chronic Fatigue
  • Given the small size of the population I have considered, my own conclusions are necessarily tentative.
  • But sometimes, it would just be a little tentative exploration of the idea that some of the official stories of world events might not be the full truth.
  • Two more chimpanzee teeth were later found at the site, an upper incisor and a tooth tentatively identified as a molar.
  • The liberals deride him as a turncoat while the right tentatively seeks to claim him.
  • The results of that study are still being analysed but a number of interesting though tentative conclusions are emerging.
  • We were tentative at first, then the last remaining tension eased and Sally relaxed into my arms. BETTER THAN THIS
  • The Skyline Melody apartments at Vazhuthacaud seem to have taken the first tentative step to recognise the need for collective action by bringing out a directory-cum-souvenir.
  • The notes appended here represent my first and necessarily tentative analysis of certain patterns in Linyaari phonemics and morphophonemics. Massage
  • She wasn't a conceited girl; she was used to admiring glances and had fended off the tentative advances of several of the young housemen, but the professor's glances were strictly impersonal and he had shown no wish to add warmth to their relationship. A Kiss For Julie
  • The film has the rhetorical flourishes of the certain, but the confusion of the tentative.
  • Where uncertainty or dispute exists and it is necessary for a some factual determination to be made in order to comply with the brief, only tentative or provisional views will be expressed.
  • It has a kind of pre-meditated tentativeness; a deliberate uncertainty.
  • In a first, tentative step, we thought mostly of hydrodynamical applications, using our results as tools for numerical computation. Ilya Prigogine - Autobiography
  • It was a kind of empire built on very provisional and tentative things that might happen.
  • She turned toward the skull, which still glowed and pulsed on the floor, and was reaching a booted toe tentatively toward it, when the man who called himself Techotl sprang forward with aery. The Conan Chronicles
  • What follows is offered as a tentative approach, but one that has already proved useful to teachers. 1 Fictional narrative.
  • It is a challenging question without a clear answer, but some tentative suggestions can be attempted. Times, Sunday Times
  • For example, we could imagine spherical shock waves bouncing back and forth between the centre and edge of an expanding ball of gas or plasma, such as in the tentative cosmogony I outline.
  • At times the home rearguard looked tentative. Times, Sunday Times
  • Blackwell's radical ideas point to the tentative beginnings of a discourse on active female sexuality.
  • He tentatively kisses the woman, who reacts ambivalently.
  • One day I hope to talk of pragma — ideas held loosely and tentatively. Paradigm Assessment Schemata (Part 2)
  • I'm gonna look into trip routes and travel times today, and plan out a tentative first month schedule to keep myself occupied.
  • As the teenagers tentatively waded into the brown muck, a skinny, worn-out alcoholic teetered over from his broken-down pickup.
  • With it, we are aware in much of the art of the day of a certain feverish tentativeness, groping, as it were, sometimes after a new spirit, sometimes after a repristination of the old in a modern form; but everywhere, I repeat, we see Life. Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O
  • The pilot episode has a tentative confidence. Times, Sunday Times
  • After another twenty years of progress in biological research we may perhaps know whether my tentative answers are correct. Infinite in All Directions
  • This episode moves the comedy a few tentative steps into uncharted territory. Times, Sunday Times
  • I have a meeting (tentatively …” meeting” is a term used very lightly here in Nica, and thoughout Latin America …) with the FSD Country Director this afternoon to discuss the feasibility of these projects, so we’ll see. Revolution? « Wanderings
  • The two ill-assorted future allies tentatively shook hands with television thousands watching, and Red Millbrook thought the tingle that ran through him was due only to the excitement of the occasion. The Elvis Latte
  • Blackwell's radical ideas point to the tentative beginnings of a discourse on active female sexuality.
  • When he spoke, his voice was reedier, thinner and more tentative than we remember: no anger, no volume and no Lewinsky-era drama. Living Politics: In Eight Minutes, Clinton Shows His Mastery
  • Then, tentatively he stained the paper with a few strokes.
  • He reached some tentative conclusions about the possible cause of the accident.
  • The great shingle bank is rather tentatively attached to the land in the north. Times, Sunday Times
  • We made a tentative arrangement to meet again next Friday.
  • I decided to take a closer look, and I have reached a tentative conclusion: This story was badly misreported from the beginning. The Volokh Conspiracy » Deconstructing the Indymedia Server Story:
  • Jeez, this teach is far less elaborate than some noisy. visit New speak learn Books Zealand basic visiting Cd travel Dunedin talking languages Invercargill newzealand kiwi Taking audio yourself learning bestselling auckland book sale tape travelling nz AudioBook speaking Wellington language christchurch mp3 teach foreign AudioBooks discount The Law of Attraction Audio Book Esther & Jerry HICKS NEW CD – The Secret Darn, one licentious kiwi capriciously fed inside some tentative travel. Planet-x.com.au » The Law of Attraction New speak learn Books Zealand basic
  • The performance began tentatively but progressed to a rousing, very satisfying conclusion.
  • The balance between instruments is especially fine when the inner voices begin to spin their own tentative arabesques.
  • But Frederic Neumann , an economist at HSBC, sees tentative signs that spending is picking up.
  • As with Powell, you can see it in her opinions in the early 1980s: the tentativeness, the discomfort with hurling judicial thunderbolts.
  • There are many things to think about before even the first tentative daffodil bulb is sunk into the ground.
  • Heron, new carving set laid out, was making his first tentative passes at a small burl he had found on the beach, thinking that it appeared to him like a gull settling its wings after it had landed.
  • Department of Agriculture and Centers for Disease Control issued what they called tentative proposed standards for food marketed to children, defined as up to age Reuters: Top News
  • This episode moves the comedy a few tentative steps into uncharted territory. Times, Sunday Times
  • After waiting for him to return and realising he wasn't going to, Jake peered up the dark, uneven staircase, and took a tentative step forwards.
  • The next round of talks is tentatively scheduled to begin October 21st in Washington.
  • The tentative map location of the suppressor gene or of the nearby Tn10dTc element was determined using the Mud-P22 lysogen collection of BENSON and GOLDMAN 1992.
  • Few results are available yet on this theme, though some tentative conclusions may be drawn.
  • We've made a tentative plan for the vacation but haven't really decided yet.
  • Tentatively identified by some experts as bounty from one of the wars that racked Middle England in the seventh and eighth centuries, they included sword pommels and dagger hilts, scabbard bosses and helmet cheekpieces, Christian crosses and figures of animals, eagles and fish. Starbulletin Headlines
  • There was nothing tentative about Bill's technique.
  • On other matters, however, there is a tentative quality and even a certain fragility. Transformed Through Activism
  • Tentatively, the young Dylan began to explore more complex dualities and - I will argue - dramatize more compelling quarrels with himself.
  • Although there have been tentative steps to introduce an online shadchan service, Sirota handwrites all her notes, and sifts information and evaluates possible connections in her head. The Guardian World News
  • She had, for some time, been tiring of the Carr ménage and had made tentative enquiries about an independent flat. IN LOVE AND WAR
  • We were tentatively booked as the middle act on a three-band cross-Canada tour.
  • The retrial is now in the defense rebuttal phase, and closing arguments are tentatively set for next week.
  • They spoke His name tentatively, as an experiment, and imitatively. Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
  • Church relations were tentative and the ecumenical movement was still in its early stages. A Channel of Peace
  • However tentative these gestures, however unrealized the ambition to create a new European and a new international order, the end of the cold war forced such questions on to the agenda.
  • Mr. Speaker," the legislative assistant from Rutledge 's office said tentatively. BALANCE OF POWER
  • Without the results of the blood test, the doctor could only make a tentative diagnosis.
  • But our contemporaries, facing up to our present moment of crisis, are thankfully rather more tentative. Times, Sunday Times
  • Religious belief is supposed to be, not tentative or hedged, but a profound, and profoundly personal, commitment.
  • Emily herself solved the problem, producing her commonplace with a friendly tentative smile. Emily Fox-Seton
  • drew a few tentative conclusions
  • It probably hit a raw nerve in a country tentatively forging an independent identity and sensitive about its folklore. Times, Sunday Times
  • Some rappers tentatively repeated rehearsed lines, while others effortlessly freestyled.
  • She was tall and slim, with angular features and a tentative smile. Spitfire Women of World War II
  • It could be argued that the enhanced participation arrangements represent the first tentative steps towards the popular planning style. Remaking Planning: the politics of urban change in the Thatcher years
  • Be your searching, tentative, very human self instead of trying to impress your mentee by claiming to be perfect.
  • we agreed tentatively on a dinner date
  • Others have tentatively suggested that the yarnwinder may allude to the spindle of the Three Fates, and should thus be regarded as a metonymic symbol of death - a classical counterpart to the cross.
  • To follow, some tentative suggestions. Times, Sunday Times
  • Now she is making her first tentative steps on the comeback trail. Times, Sunday Times
  • This year there was tentative agreement that the mood was cautious optimism. Times, Sunday Times
  • Megaera -" His voice is tentative, not the voice of the lightnings and thunders he has been. The Towers of the Sunset
  • Meanwhile, NASA presented a tentative exploration strategy paper at the international workshop.
  • Tentatively, this study introduced simple and economical Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP) and Impact Soil Tester (IST) for facilitating the investigation of subgrade and upgrading its quality.
  • The pity is that the reforms have come so late and have previously been so tentative.
  • We can tentatively draw two conclusions that bear on this larger debate.
  • It is a familiar sombreness, unthreatening but omniscient, like the dour old man in the corner, terrifying the children with his dark warnings, but thrilling to approach, to reach towards with a tentative hand.
  • The few subsequent endeavors, tentative and half-hearted, to repristinate my venery were foredoomed, partly because I had feared they were, to failure: erection was incomplete, ejaculation without pleasure. Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 Sexual Inversion
  • It was just about 12 years ago that I sat on my living room floor, watching Natalie take her first tentative steps.
  • Wilson was tentative for the first few weeks and didn't display his usual tenacity.
  • She may sound uncertain, tentative, in areas where her knowledge is weak. Times, Sunday Times
  • So I've tentatively extrapolated that gamma, delta, iota, chi, and rho are *cemla (cf. gimel), *talta (cf. daleth), *eiata (cf. yod), *χei and *rusa (cf. resh). An online Etruscan Dictionary has arrived
  • Michelle smiled at him and tentatively shot a glance at Grace before replying.
  • Bag B held personal effects that included cosmetics, pepper spray, diaphragm, douche and an aspirin bottle that contained a yellow powder that preliminary toxicological examination has tentatively identified as clonidine, a blood pressure medication sometimes abused as a “knockout” pill. Three Stations : An Arkady Renko Novel
  • His legs took a few tentative steps into the room, the sound of his boots on the soft wood absurdly loud in his ears.
  • Classify as a phonic alternative, but this is tentative.
  • It's of great importance to us to accept that large lumps of ice have fallen from the sky, but what we desire most -- perhaps because of our interest in its archaeologic and palaeontologic treasures -- is now to be through with tentativeness and probation, and to take the Super-Sargasso Sea into full acceptance in our more advanced fold of the chosen of this twentieth century. The Book of the Damned
  • She may sound uncertain, tentative, in areas where her knowledge is weak. Times, Sunday Times
  • However, this view is obiter and tentatively expressed.
  • He has been a bit tentative lately but has consistantly been trustworthy from the start. The Tail Section » LOST - Who Can Ya Trust?
  • He reached out and gave the statue a tentative whack on the side, then a series of harder slaps.
  • First, the medium-term vulnerabilities and constraints to robust growth discussed last week (see "Ten Risks To Global Growth"); second, the risk of a double-dip, W-shaped recession, as the wings of a tentative recovery of growth in 2010 could be clipped toward the end of that year or in 2011 by a perfect storm of rising oil prices, rising taxes and rising nominal and real interest rates on the public debt of many advanced economies. Doomsayers--Or Realists?
  • The sheets held by little pink fingers tentatively dipped down to reveal Marc's terrified face, then were drawn back up tight. CORMORANT
  • I slowed down to a tentative walk as I stepped onto Myra's walkway.
  • Players are tentative and nervous, fearful that one missed shot or ugly turnover will earn them a seat on the bench.
  • The vesiculated nerve profiles were tentatively classified on the basis of the fine structural appearances of their vesicular content.
  • He shifted his feet slightly, tautened his muscles with a tentative pull, then relaxed again, questing for a perfect adjustment of all the levers of his body. Chapter III
  • She may sound uncertain, tentative, in areas where her knowledge is weak. Times, Sunday Times
  • I tentatively suggested that she might be happier working somewhere else.
  • Keeping thalassaemia in mind, Upasana Trivedi is writing a play with tentative title 'Story of a thalassaemic'. Daily News & Analysis
  • Places that failed to make the 'tentative' list include Blackpool, the former RAF airfield at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, the Rows shops and half-timbered houses in Chester, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway. UK nominates 11 sites for Unesco world heritage status
  • We are fortunate that Chris Waters's Fred Trueman – a thorough and judicious book that does not equivocate over the great Yorkshire and England fast bowler's complexities and sometimes splenetic temperament – is not so tentative. Fred Trueman: the good, the bad and the grouchy | Rob Bagchi
  • The study uses a methodology which combines elements of traditional legal scholarship with a tentative import of economic analysis.
  • To me, it feels quite tentative with quavering voice asking big questions needing even bigger answers. The Sun
  • United came through, comfortably in the end after getting used to the surface in a tentative first half. The Sun
  • George says the event has been tentatively scheduled for Friday Februrary 6 and will be committee's final fundraising effort.
  • He began circumspectly, prodding tentatively at the few balls he faced.
  • Political leaders have reached a tentative agreement to hold a preparatory conference next month.
  • Handprints in a vast cave carry a tentative quality, a small gesture of presence.
  • … Considered from the standpoint of their "pragmatics," they are the record of a long and tentative exercise that needed to be revised and corrected again and again. Foucault and the Hedgerow History of Sexuality
  • Blackwell's radical ideas point to the tentative beginnings of a discourse on active female sexuality.
  • How you knock on a door, says Mr Pullin, is freighted with meaning: there is a world of difference between tentative tapping and insistent hammering.
  • Doyle decided he was getting poor value from the scrappage of offcuts from the silver cutlery products and started tentatively investigating using the offcuts to make jewellery.
  • The group announced tentative plans to obtain a Stock Exchange listing and float some of its shares.
  • It has been characterised as an era of colourless politicians, ill-judged initiatives in foreign policy, tentative reforms, parliamentary corruption, and economic weakness.
  • The notes appended here represent my first and necessarily tentative analysis of certain patterns in Linyaari phonemics and morphophonemics. Massage
  • The inspector steered him towards the Ministry of Agriculture and the plan got a tentative tick - with provisos.
  • Fraser Island is rich in reptile fauna and harbors a large number of specialized sand dwelling reduced limb skinks including a possible new genus, tentatively known as the Fraser Island Skink. Fraser Island, Australia
  • A tentative diagnosis of rabies was made on a biopsy and confirmed at autopsy.
  • United came through, comfortably in the end after getting used to the surface in a tentative first half. The Sun
  • The subject dinosaurs tentatively identified as members of Maiasaura certainly had a peculiar diet: their coprolites were composed mostly of "fragmented conifer wood". Archive 2008-12-01
  • What began as a tentative dance has become a passionate embrace.
  • Sanders perused the Apple iTune Store's, noted the absence of the term "licensing" in the End User License Agreement EULA, and tentatively pronounced ReDigi on "fairly solid legal ground. Ars Technica
  • It has been characterised as an era of colourless politicians, ill-judged initiatives in foreign policy, tentative reforms, parliamentary corruption, and economic weakness.
  • Add to all this that this administration seems to tiptoe around itself, and you get a tentative, ponderingly slow, left-leaning, promise making, but result-deficient reality. B.D. Gallof: Remember, Remember The 3rd Of November
  • She was tall and slim, with angular features and a tentative smile. Spitfire Women of World War II
  • The comments from the E.C.B. president, Mario Draghi, came after the bank's decision to keep its benchmark interest rate steady, amid what it called "tentative" signs that the pace of an economic downturn in Europe had stabilized. NYT > Home Page
  • I decided to take a closer look, and I have reached a tentative conclusion: This story was badly misreported from the beginning.
  • Montgomerie is equally tentative, possibly because he senses Kidd's ambivalence.
  • The timpanist, however, sounds tentative throughout, as if afraid to overwhelm the trumpeters.
  • So visual differentiation of the individual species in many specimens is tentative and can be verified only with some type of elemental analysis.
  • The victim is offered restitution tentatively, with little confidence that it will be accepted - and finally with little confidence that correctives are possible.
  • In a tentative first half neither side was able to dismantle resolute defences. Times, Sunday Times
  • To walk unaided three tentative steps from mother's to father's arms is a cause for high celebration and congratulation.
  • Her expression tentative, she moved slowly toward the chair facing him and hesitantly sat down on it. I’ll Walk Alone
  • He stared at him tentatively, dazed, then dropped back to the ground cross-legged.
  • A more tentative evolution towards greater breadth and flexibility would be expected.
  • The story that's stuck in my head is one that's tentatively called 'Don't panic' which is the title of the Coldplay song that was in my head when the idea occured to me Which in turn comes from a famous line in 'A hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. Archive 2005-02-01
  • There are tentative plans to introduce a PDF version of each event.
  • Here are a few tentative suggestions. Times, Sunday Times
  • Alice was a touch tentative about what she said to Seth that night.
  • This time, Taras, only for a crisp moment, acted tentative in taking the sedentary position.
  • But people writing for political quarterlies necessarily draw tentative conclusions about very recent events, and historical perspective does not always settle questions

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