(a.) Wanting confidence in one's self; distrustful of one's own powers; not self-reliant; timid; modest; bashful; characterized by modest reserve.
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.
Gregarious
Definition:
(a.) Habitually living or moving in flocks or herds; tending to flock or herd together; not habitually solitary or living alone.
Example Sentences:
(1) Rubens is not a solitary source of painterly genius, but a gregarious master who never hid his own quotations of earlier art.
(2) Cytological features are in agreement with the gregarious behaviour of cockroaches.
(3) Path analysis procedures were used to test a causal model that concerns possible antecedent conditions in relation to gregarious drinking patterns.
(4) He inherited his father's calculation and his mother's gregariousness and style.
(5) Backstage, Gabbana – the more gregarious of the two – will talk about fashion as fantasy, last season explaining his vision thus: “I have this life … I want to be happy.
(6) Famously, she lit a lamp in her window, as a welcoming sign to the vast Irish diaspora; deliberately – there was no lack of steel in her campaign, and she quickly showed a willingness to exploit the gaffes of often incompetent rivals – she made herself less private and austere, acquiring suits by Irish designers, trying, above all, to be more open and approachable, more, she told Byrne, like her own warm, gregarious mother.
(7) The imposing and gregarious Midlands-born banker tried and failed to buy Northern Rock before it was nationalised in February 2008 and then missed out on 318 Royal Bank of Scotland branches last year.
(8) Little wonder that tactless buyers at Asda rubber-stamped the rapidly withdrawn "Mental Patient" fancy dress costume when "mental" is routinely worn as a badge of gregarious honour.
(9) These patients also showed significant differences on the MCMI asocial, gregarious, and neurotic depression scales.
(10) Passive avoidance learning occupies a central role in accounts of disinhibited behavior, ranging from psychopaths' persistent criminality (Hare 1970) to extraverts' gregariousness (Gray, 1972).
(11) Bank swallows nest gregariously in colonies usually ranging from 10 to 300 nests.
(12) When we sit down for a more formal interview in his Manhattan hotel room a few hours later, Ross's earlier gregarious anecdotes are replaced by aphorisms that could come straight off one of those inspirational posters you see in recruitment consultant offices.
(13) Light-microscopically, pleomorphic tumor cells clustered gregariously and often formed alveolar structures.
(14) American Indians and Hispanos have a greater tendency to drink gregariously, to drink more, and to have more disruption in social role functioning.
(15) Females of two hamster species with contrasting degrees of gregariousness were tested for social influences on the timing of sexual maturation.
(16) He is a gregarious media grandee, who was born into the royal family of UK showbusiness.
(17) 2) Traditionals, healthy at both ages, were gregarious and nurturant.
(18) "Affectionately known as Corporal Hamer in the office, he was a gregarious figure, a wonderful friend who was hugely popular with his colleagues.
(19) When female dwarf hamsters (Phodopus sungorus campbelli), a gregarious species, were housed with an adult male at weaning, they began estrous cycles significantly earlier than when they were housed alone or with their family.
(20) Experiments were performed to evaluate the status of antibacterial defensive responses in M. sexta larvae parasitized by this gregarious endoparasitoid.