(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.
Infidel
Definition:
(a.) Not holding the faith; -- applied esp. to one who does not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the supernatural origin of Christianity.
(n.) One who does not believe in the prevailing religious faith; especially, one who does not believe in the divine origin and authority of Christianity; a Mohammedan; a heathen; a freethinker.
Example Sentences:
(1) Infidelity of replication is a hallmark of the HIV-1 RT, and replication errors by the enzyme on RNA and DNA templates are discussed.
(2) Extensive research among the Afghan National Army – 68 focus groups – and US military personnel alike concluded: "One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group [the US soldiers] generally views the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals.
(3) I got a hint of the price she has paid for her ambidextrous approach to cultural identify after her last interview was published, when a shocking number of British Pakistani men got in touch to denounce her as a shameful infidel.
(4) Alterations of DNA can be caused by reaction of electrophilic agents with DNA constituents, by increased infidelity of DNA replication, by integration of viral genomes or by recombination events involving integrated proviruses.
(5) In 56 cases (10,2%) we found a marker profile consisting of both myeloid and lymphoid characteristics (biphenotypic) leukemia = interlineage infidelity).
(6) "Ectopic" marker expression, however, which should not be interpreted as reflecting lineage infidelity, may in some instances explain different clinical courses in AL patients.
(7) After an itinerant childhood, overshadowed by abandonment and infidelity, Yates claimed to have experimented with sex and heroin at an early age.
(8) This finding supports the concept of lineage fidelity, and suggests that true interlineage infidelity, myeloid to lymphoid, is a rare occurrence in adult acute nonlymphocytic leukemia.
(9) In recent weeks Trump has been cranking up his gender attacks on Clinton, accusing her of playing the woman card and criticising her for being an “enabler” of her husband’s infidelities.
(10) Mysteries remain, however: the people involved in infidelities are still unnamed and the writers have not yet revealed the identity of their 'deep throat'.
(11) "Are you an infidel to try and take that from them?
(12) Naseri told The Saturday Paper Taliban fighters found his Australian driver’s licence and photos of Australia on his phone, threatening him, “You [are] from an infidel country, we kill you.
(13) Research revealed Mandela's infidelities, his love of smart suits, his reluctance to abandon a successful career as a lawyer for the high risks of politics.
(14) 1994 Publication of The Prince of Wales, for which author Jonathan Dimbleby is given full access to Prince and his papers and diaries, reveals details of his infidelity and suggestions that Diana was mentally unstable.
(15) The association was maintained when the data was stratified by other risk factors, including PE2 and the presence of blasts bearing immunologically-defined markers of more than one differentiation lineage (lineage infidelity).
(16) In the book, Trierweiler describes infidelity as “an infernal cycle”.
(17) This is from the 1949 Variety Programme Policy Guide for Writers and Producers: "There is an absolute ban on the following: jokes about lavatories, effeminacy in men, immorality of any kind; suggestive reference to honeymoon couples, chambermaids, prostitution; extreme care should be taken in dealing with references to or jokes about marital infidelity."
(18) Later he told a TV interviewer that he had shown heroic self-restraint in not mentioning Bill Clinton’s past infidelities out of respect for their daughter Chelsea.
(19) Whether these cases represent true "lineage infidelity" remains to be answered.
(20) They were there to record everything from his despair at the fickleness of his recruits, to the distress of his wife Jools at the way the media had invaded their privacy, with scurrilous rumours of infidelity.