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I have this sentence in my flashcards, which I pulled from a JLPT textbook of mine a while back. Long enough ago that I've lost the source. It looks strange to me now, though, and I wonder if maybe I copied it down wrong:

ためらいもはず告白{こくはく}した

I believe it means, "didn't hesitate to confess (my) feelings."

Because はず is in there, I think it implies that it was expected that the speaker ordinarily might have hesitated, but managed to confess anyway. Shouldn't it be:

ためらいもはずけど告白{こくはく}した

... or...

ためらいもはずが、告白{こくはく}した

... or something like that? Without some kind of "but..." or "although..." type of connection to glue the sentence together, it seems half formed to me.

Is the original sentence complete? If so, what am I missing about the grammar that makes it complete? If not, how should it be completed?

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    My intuition doesn't mean much, but... isn't it a noun? So unless you're omitting the copula on purpose, shouldn't it be はずだけど／はずだが rather than はずけど／はずが?
    – user1478
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 4:45

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もはず is a word by itself.

The sentence means "I confessed without hesitation".

As explained in the comments, there is big chances the sentence is miss-typed. I personally think the sentence would originally be ためらいもせず告白した.

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    As a classical Japanese spelling yes. In modern spelling, it is もわず. This is the same as 言はず becoming 言わず. And for that matter, why the particle は is pronounced as ワ.
    – Dono
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 4:56
  • @Dono Do you think it is a typo ?
    – oldergod
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 5:15
  • In modern Japanese, wouldn't you usually say おもわず rather than もわず? Or is もわず used as well?
    – user1478
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 5:27
  • @snailplane That is why I specifically wrote "modern spelling", not "modern Japanese". The above link is to a classical (文語) entry. It is extremely improbable that the poster took basic grammar notes for the JLPT using classical vocabulary.
    – Dono
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 5:30
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    I believe you're right that it must have been ためらいもせず告白した.
    – Questioner
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 7:32

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