(n.) The state of being diffident; distrust; want of confidence; doubt of the power, ability, or disposition of others.
(n.) Distrust of one's self or one's own powers; lack of self-reliance; modesty; modest reserve; bashfulness.
Example Sentences:
(1) The Observer of the mid-1950s resembled nothing so much as a giant seminar conducted by the soft-spoken and diffident, yet steely, figure of David Astor.
(2) The main factor, however, is presumably not primness or diffidence but the chart's timeframe.
(3) Physically, he has a sort of wiry poise, often standing on the balls of his feet, but there is also something diffident, almost shyly polite, about him.
(4) In conversation, he is a curious mix of openness and a sweet, faintly diffident shyness.
(5) Diffident technically, she none the less doggedly pursued the detail of the execution of her scenery and costumes: she got what she needed.
(6) Wouldn't we rather our film writers be morally engaged viewers rather than diffident aesthetes?
(7) She too is a sceptic, but has been drawn to watch diffident Corbyn – potentially her future leader.
(8) His maiden speech came on his second day as an MP, in the debate on the address – intervening, he suggested improbably, with feelings of diffidence: "I am convinced that the key to all our hopes and aspirations in the field of economic activity lies in the maintenance and improvement of industrial relationships," he said.
(9) They were difficult because of the language barrier, which required exclusive use of interpreters, and because of the diffidence of the women themselves, especially in discussing matters of sex and childbearing.
(10) He is an odd, diffident sort of ambassador, spreading the message about "the Finnish miracle" but not really believing in the data that supposedly proves that it works.
(11) It stars Tom Hollander as a diffident, gaffe-prone British minister who is packed off to Washington DC, where he becomes a pawn in the political opposition to the war.
(12) And soon he was among them, grinning his diffident chipmunk smile, with his wife, a striking vision in white and red, beside him.
(13) A magnet for media coverage around the world thanks to his entrepreneurial success and love of a photo opportunity, Branson can be surprisingly diffident in person.
(14) He was too nervous – petrified before a big case, and diffident about his own abilities.
(15) At 43, he still looked boyish, with his questioning eyes, a thatch of hair and diffident mumbles.
(16) The media glamourised professional women who decided to have children while pursuing demanding careers, and warned women who put off having children that they would regret their diffidence later.
(17) Like Henry, whom Wenger signed as a diffident winger from Juventus in his early twenties in 1999, Welbeck has arrived at Arsenal after doing more running than scoring at Manchester United with the invitation to develop in a more favoured central attacking role.
(18) That diffidence is evident on screen, in Mia's core of vulnerability, the lonely anguish she camouflages with violence and filthy language.
(19) The man whose motto is a diffident "just messin' about" talks with unguarded passion about the process of music-making.
(20) In 1991, Gavin Millar filmed Call For The Dead's successor A Murder Of Quality, with Denholm Elliott as Smiley, his nervous diffidence dovetailing perfectly with the character.
Efface
Definition:
(v. t.) To cause to disappear (as anything impresses or inscribed upon a surface) by rubbing out, striking out, etc.; to erase; to render illegible or indiscernible; as, to efface the letters on a monument, or the inscription on a coin.
(v. t.) To destroy, as a mental impression; to wear away.
Example Sentences:
(1) Histiocytes, lymphocytes, immunoblasts, and plasma cells were present in expanded paracortical regions which encroached on, and occasionally effaced, lymphoid follicles.
(2) In more than 60%, dilatation or effacement of the cervix occurred with minimal side effects.
(3) The O157:H8 strains did not produce VT. All gave localised attachment to HEp-2 cells, associated with a positive fluorescence-actin staining test, and all hybridised with the E coli attaching and effacing (eae) probe.
(4) Yet social workers are usually extremely modest and self-effacing about their achievements.
(5) Three of five patients in whom the diagnosis was made early in the course of the disease and in whom plasmapheresis was initiated immediately had reversal of epithelial foot process effacement and remission of proteinuria.
(6) The ability of enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) to form attaching and effacing intestinal lesions is a major characteristic of EPEC pathogenesis.
(7) These findings contribute to emerging evidence that attaching effacing intestinal bacteria are globally distributed pathogens in a variety of host species and that bacteriophage-mediated production of Shiga-like toxin is related to the virulence of such bacteria.
(8) Mean basal levels and the rise in prostaglandin metabolites were not related to cerclage type, trimester of pregnancy, or cervical status (dilatation less than or equal to 3 cm; effacement less than or equal to 60%).
(9) One pLV527-hybridizing strain displayed both attachment-effacement and invasiveness in the rabbit ileal biopsy explant model.
(10) Immensely clever, but also personable, self-effacing and even at times giggly, Letwin has been charged with resolving disputes between departments and, in the coalition, he was a key link man with the Liberal Democrats.
(11) The patients were predicted to have a poor prognosis if associated with an earlier occurrence, the hematoma was large, the patient had a poor Glasgow Coma Scale score at the time of CT follow-up, clinical deterioration was noted, or partial or complete effacement of the suprachiasmatic cistern was noted on the CT scan.
(12) It takes me a few seconds to realise that Ben Miller (best known for BBC1's The Armstrong & Miller Show ) is just terribly self-effacing and hidden by a beard (I check later; he's losing it for the show proper).
(13) Four weeks post-transplantation the xenografts were intraluminally inoculated with various strains of lapine attaching and effacing E. coli or group A rotavirus.
(14) Eventually, large areas of brush border effacement occurred with close apposition between bacterial and enterocyte membranes, leading to cup and pedestal formation.
(15) Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) are a class of diarrheagenic organisms that induce a characteristic attaching and effacing lesion in enterocytes and various cultured cell lines.
(16) Fold thickening evolved into fold effacement with a shaggy contour in two patients with viral infection.
(17) We conclude that small bowel colonization by colonizing, nontoxigenic E. coli impairs water and electrolyte absorption and sucrase activity in the absence of recognized enterotoxin, cytotoxin, invasion, or effacement traits.
(18) These results confirm the role of the eae gene in the attaching and effacing activity of EPEC and establish the utility of a new system for the construction of deletion mutations.
(19) BE levels were found to correlate significantly with uterine muscle contraction (r = 0.966, P less than 0.05) and with cervical effacement (r = 0.974, P less than 0.05) during labor.
(20) Patients with decreased lower face height (40 percent) had exaggerated, deepened folds with acutely closed angles between the lower lip and chin pad, whereas those with increased lower face height (25 percent) had shallow, effaced folds.