# Is there a word that means "unsure but okay with it"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 30, 2016, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472 "2016-08-30T12:14:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2016, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/21 "2016-08-30T21:39:39Z")
> [@Bumbazine](#):
>
> If polling is still open, might I suggest ‘sanguine’?
Zoë: You sanguine about the kinda reception we’re apt to receive on an Alliance ship, Captain?
Mal: Absolutely. What’s “sanguine” mean?
Zoë: Sanguine. Hopeful. Plus, point of interest, it also means “bloody”.
Mal: Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don’t it?
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### Author:  [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/22 "2016-08-31T01:54:57Z")
Lukewarm?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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### Author:  [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/23 "2016-08-31T05:07:42Z")
suggestion #1
“hesistant”
Maybe in use with an additional word or two , such as “she accepted it hesitantly”
Suggestion #2
“with reservations”
example: “she agreed, but with reservations”
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/24 "2016-08-31T07:36:54Z")
> [@Bumbazine](#):
>
> If polling is still open, might I suggest ‘sanguine’?
Nah…the situation described in the OP is more phlegmatic than sanguine.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/25 "2016-08-31T09:31:05Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#):
>
> Nah…the situation described in the OP is more phlegmatic than sanguine.
What a melacholic thought…
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/26 "2016-08-31T10:04:39Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#):
>
> Ambivalent
That’s the one.
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### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/27 "2016-08-31T11:09:44Z")
Would ‘Stoicism’ come into this? Again not perfect, but what do you expect? I’m on my lunch break.
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### Author:  [@quiltguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/28 "2016-08-31T11:54:14Z")
It’sallgood. OK, three words, but still… 😉
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/29 "2016-08-31T12:04:21Z")
According to Keats it’s [negative capability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability):
> [@](#):
>
> I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason
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### Author:  [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/30 "2016-08-31T18:07:24Z")
> [@dtilque](#):
>
> What a melacholic thought…
I found it kinda humourous.
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/31 "2016-08-31T18:45:58Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#):
>
> According to Keats it’s [negative capability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability):
Well, hell, if you want to go that way:
Aporia
…
Aporia (Ancient Greek: ἀπορία: “impasse, difficulty of passing, lack of resources, puzzlement”) denotes in philosophy a philosophical puzzle or state of puzzlement and in rhetoric a rhetorically useful expression of doubt.
…
Definitions of the term aporia have varied throughout history. The Oxford English Dictionary includes two forms of the word: the adjective, “aporetic” which it defines as “to be at a loss,” “impassable,” and “inclined to doubt, or to raise objections”; and the noun form “aporia,” which it defines as the “state of the aporetic” and “a perplexity or difficulty.” The dictionary entry also includes two early textual uses, which both refer to the term’s rhetorical (rather than philosophical) usage.
In George Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie (1589) aporia is “the Doubtful, [so] called…because often we will seem to caste perils, and make doubts of things when by a plaine manner of speech we might affirm or deny [them].” In another reference from 1657, J. Smith’s Mystical Rhetoric, the term becomes “a figure whereby the speaker sheweth that he doubteth, either where to begin for the multitude of matters, or what to do or say in some strange or ambiguous thing” (OED). Herbert Weir Smyth’s Greek Grammar (1956) also focuses on the rhetorical usage by defining aporia as “an artifice by which a speaker feigns doubts as to where he shall begin or end or what he shall do or say” (674).
> **[Aporia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia)**
>
> In philosophy, an aporia (Ancient Greek: ᾰ̓πορῐ́ᾱ, romanized: aporíā, lit. 'literally: "lacking passage", also: "impasse", "difficulty in passage", "puzzlement"') is a conundrum or state of puzzlement. In rhetoric, it is a declaration of doubt, made for rhetorical purpose and often feigned.
> In philosophy, an aporia is a philosophical puzzle or a seemingly irresoluble impasse in an inquiry, often arising as a result of equally plausible yet inconsistent premises, i.e. a paradox. It can also denot...
So “aporetic” it is, but with an “I’m OK with it” appended. Sanguine aporia, maybe.
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### Author:  [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/32 "2016-09-02T03:09:06Z")
I am thinking resigned or accepting, perhaps passively accepting?
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### Author:  [@flano1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flano1)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/33 "2016-09-02T03:10:12Z")
another three worder:
yeah, no, yeah
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### Author:  [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/34 "2016-09-02T14:26:46Z")
agnostic.
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### Author:  [@albino\_manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/albino_manatee)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/35 "2016-09-03T12:20:03Z")
apprehensive
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Terrific](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Terrific)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/36 "2016-09-03T14:39:15Z")
How about tentative.
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/37 "2016-09-03T15:41:30Z")
The best answer I found on an Australian Yahoo Answers site was “reconciled”.
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### Author:  [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/38 "2016-09-05T00:33:57Z")
Well I know a phrase for it, “Good enough for government work.”
Anyway, I think you’ve all missed the best word of all to describe it:
‘resigned’ – having accepted something unpleasant that one cannot do anything about.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2016, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/39 "2016-09-05T03:12:27Z")
I’ve actually used the word “agnostic” for it.
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### Author:  [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-that-means-unsure-but-okay-with-it/764472/40 "2016-09-06T18:44:12Z")
What about nonchalant?
The problem I see with some words like “resigned”, which are cromulent, but denote an air of disappointment, which I don’t think the OP is specifying.
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